Will HS2 make rail travel worse.

[plugwash]

IIRC HS2 will only be half an hour or so faster than the classic lines, there is also talk of compulsory reservations, which will mean bookjing on a specific train and making sure one catches it. It seems to me that this will waste much of the time saved.

And it doesn't seem like it will be possible for passengers to just ignore HS2, as HS2 is not a self-contained system and there is limited capacity on the classic lines, it seems like for most destinations HS2 trains will replace existing trains rather than supplementing them.

So I can't shake the feeling the HS2 is likely to make rail travel worse, not better.

What do other people think?

 

[AlexNL]

HS2 will speed up journeys for those who make point to point connections on the network it serves, but will also provide benefits for journeys involving a change. Total journey times will be reduced and capacity increased. Since the long distance high speed services will move to a dedicated line this will free up a lot of capacity for regional and freight services.

Whether reservation will be made compulsory or not is to be seen, but even if it does this does not have to be a showstopper. On TGVs in France this has been the norm for decades, yet TGVs have carried 3 billion passengers over the past 40 years. Germany's ICE network does not have mandatory reservations and is a great success as well.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It depends where you live, but the new capacity will free up the southern WCML for more services (local, regional and freight).
It will also make journeys to Heathrow and anywhere on the Crossrail map and GWML easier (via Old Oak).
Some places will lose out, or get poorer services (eg Stoke, Coventry) or get ignored (Chester/North Wales).
Eventually Derby/Nottingham and the northern MML will be tied in, and so will NPR places via Manchester, freeing up more capacity for local services.
It remains to be seen how HS2 services mix with WCML services north of Crewe.

 

[AlexNL]

But even north Wales will profit from HS2, even though the railway doen not directly serve Wales.

Euston to Crewe via HS2 will be 30 minutes faster than the current services, so if you don't mind changing trains in Crewe you can shave off some time compared to today (assuming decent connections are provided).

 

[GRALISTAIR]

The freed up capacity will improve things IMHO.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

.Euston to Crewe via HS2 will be 30 minutes faster than the current services, so if you don't mind changing trains in Crewe you can shave off some time compared to today (assuming decent connections are provided).

Who can say. Can imagine the Euston to Crewe leg via HS2 being 30 minutes quicker, then a 45 wait at Crewe for the North Wales connection.

 

[py_megapixel]

Who can say. Can imagine the Euston to Crewe leg via HS2 being 30 minutes quicker, then a 45 wait at Crewe for the North Wales connection.

There'll be more than 1tph from London to Crewe, surely?

 

[Railcar]

For those in the north wishing to travel to the continent, they will still have the trek through the back streets of Somers Town to HS1 in St P., having extricated themselves from the new super-Euston. I forsee a wail on social media that complains 'why didn't they link HS2 to HS1?'

 

[mmh]

Who can say. Can imagine the Euston to Crewe leg via HS2 being 30 minutes quicker, then a 45 wait at Crewe for the North Wales connection.

You beat me to it! And of course direct services attract people who wouldn't otherwise make a journey. Some here refuse to acknowledge that, they are wrong. Most will make changes for a journey they have to make, they won't make a journey they don't have to if the changes are onerous. (The same concept applies in many areas, there are proper terms for it which I forget at the moment)

In the real world for these optional journeys people gravitate towards the convenient options.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Who can say. Can imagine the Euston to Crewe leg via HS2 being 30 minutes quicker, then a 45 wait at Crewe for the North Wales connection.

You already have to change to get from Euston to North Wales for most of the day, as there are only a few direct services a day - so HS2 won't be changing very much in that regard. As @py_megapixel says, there will be more than 1 tph HS2 Euston-Crewe - so if you have a 45 minute wait at Crewe, that probably means you picked the wrong train at Euston!

IIRC HS2 will only be half an hour or so faster than the classic lines, there is also talk of compulsory reservations, which will mean bookjing on a specific train and making sure one catches it. It seems to me that this will waste much of the time saved.

We don't know what the final ticketing system will be, but it seems inconceivable that HS2 will not allow turn-up-and-go passengers. Remember, HS2 will bring a huge increase in the numbers of seats between London-Birmingham-Manchester/etc. so whoever is operating HS2 will have a huge incentive to bring in as many new passengers as possible to fill those seats: There is no way they will be wanting to restrict passenger numbers by forcing people to book in advance.

If we do see compulsory seat reservations (that's a big 'if' but I can see they might decide there are safety reasons to enforce that, just to make sure that everyone has a seat when travelling at high speed), then I would expect that to take the form of, being automatically given a reservation when you buy your ticket, even if you buy an open ticket 5 minutes before the train you say you want is due to leave.

 

[kentrailman]

As someone who is a regular user of GWR and fed up as it is with having to stop at Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath spa etc etc, adding yet another stop at old oak common will most certainly not improve the journey. How many GWR trains will have to stop there by the way, does anyone know ?

 

[gazzaa2]

As someone who is a regular user of GWR and fed up as it is with having to stop at Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath spa etc etc, adding yet another stop at old oak common will most certainly not improve the journey. How many GWR trains will have to stop there by the way, does anyone know ?

I'd imagine it'll be like Clapham Junction is to Victoria.

 

[NoRoute]

My concern is that with the railways being loss making and requiring on-going subsidies to operate, adding HS2 will leave less public funding available for the remaining conventional network where the financial situation will be significantly worse because the high value passenger journeys will be cherry picked by HS2.

The cities directly served by HS2 will benefit for the faster services, other towns and cities on the conventional routes will suffer because service frequencies will fall and the faster services will go, the benefits of this extra capacity released will be minimal because there won't be the subsidy available to run services to fill it.

 

[Runningaround]

Not standing between Birmingham and London will be an improvement it it takes enough passengers off the current lines.

 

[fishwomp]

I'd imagine it'll be like Clapham Junction is to Victoria.

And also, few people want to go to Paddington. Most have onward journey to complete, involving either underground or now most (?) by Crossrail. Would Crossrail transfer at OOC plus a few stops on that be quicker than a longer walk at Paddington and Crossrail from there?

 

[Bevan Price]

Despite denials from some people, I think it will make more journeys unaffordable for many people not on expense accounts. Inevitably, the govt. will want to try and recover some of the enormously over-expensive construction costs. It will probably mean worse services for places not directly served by HS2. And it will probably worsen overcrowding at some stations that cannot accommodate full-length HS2 train formations.

 

[Halish Railway]

There shouldn’t need to be any need for compulsory reservations as the rolling stock has been specified to take a crushload.

See 2.5

https://assets.hs2.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/27130700/HS2-HS2-RR-SPE-000-000007_P11_TTS_Main_Body__External_.pdf

TGVs may not be able to take standing passengers, so maybe that is why they have compulsory reservations.

 

[BayPaul]

My concern is that with the railways being loss making and requiring on-going subsidies to operate, adding HS2 will leave less public funding available for the remaining conventional network where the financial situation will be significantly worse because the high value passenger journeys will be cherry picked by HS2.

The cities directly served by HS2 will benefit for the faster services, other towns and cities on the conventional routes will suffer because service frequencies will fall and the faster services will go, the benefits of this extra capacity released will be minimal because there won't be the subsidy available to run services to fill it.

HS2 will be very profit making, with high demand and very low cost per passenger. It will easily out compete road - basically meaning that for many more journeys you would be stupid to drive. The classic network will benefit financially from being able to take a share of this profit as overall rail subsidy can drop, from connecting journeys, and from more efficient use of existing lines.

 

[AlbertBeale]

HS2 will be very profit making, with high demand and very low cost per passenger. It will easily out compete road - basically meaning that for many more journeys you would be stupid to drive. The classic network will benefit financially from being able to take a share of this profit as overall rail subsidy can drop, from connecting journeys, and from more efficient use of existing lines.

Given the massive cost of the project, it won't be able to claim to be "in profit" for a generation or more. Just as its effect on carbon emissions, given its unnecessarily high spec and high speed - despite silly claims that it's a "green" project - will make it a net emitter until the end of the century.

 

[BayPaul]

Given the massive cost of the project, it won't be able to claim to be "in profit" for a generation or more. Just as its effect on carbon emissions, given its unnecessarily high spec and high speed - despite silly claims that it's a "green" project - will make it a net emitter until the end of the century.

That's not how capital cost works. You don't wait until you have paid back the build cost, you spread it over the life of the project.
The high speed adds little to the emissions, but means it can compete far better against road, so should be good for the environment.

 

[Ken H]

While HS2 will be good for the places it serves, I fear that places currently served by fast services will see a degradation. Milton Keynes, Coventry, Leicester, loughborough, Stoke, Stafford. Even Nottingham.
And suburban stations in the west mids will lose the easy connections at New St. Selly Oak - London will involve a lengthy trek to Curzon St. Or they will do M42/M40 instead.

 

[NoRoute]

That's not how capital cost works. You don't wait until you have paid back the build cost, you spread it over the life of the project.

Do you believe HS2 passenger revenues will cover both its day to day operating costs and cover the interest charges and repayments on its capital costs?

Given the huge capital cost of the project I think that highly unlikely, it may well cover its operational costs but I can't see it covering the interest and capital repayment costs, so overall HS2 in its entirety will need subsidies, which given the limited public funding for rail will leave less for the rest of the network. If it was likely to generate a profit then the original concept of having the private sector invest and build HS2 might have been possible.

Meanwhile a significant proportion of HS2 passengers will not be new, they will be transferring from existing services, so revenue from the conventional network will reduce, at a time when available subsidy is likely to be lower.

 

[Route115?]

You need the stations to be in the middle of towns - the Germans know this, the French often get it wrong. Totton would have been a disaister. HS2 looks to be over enginered, too much speed that is not required and not enough connectivity. I wonder how having having to transfer to New St / Moor St for connections will limit traffic to the West Midlands. A tunnel under the existing Bham stations which would also link New St & Moor St might be more expensive but I think that it would stimulate a lot of new traffic.

Three observations.

There has been an increase in local stops on many services over the last forty years, for very good commercial reasons. HS2 seems to ignore intermediate stops.

The railfreight chaps often talk about HS2 releasing capacity. Unfortunately intermediate passenger stops will suffer. Of course freight could operate on HS2 at night - apart from the gradients and doubtless other factors.

High speed lines are great if you have a strong central city - think of France & Paris. Right now it makes sense to concentrate as much business in London as possible. Trips to London are largely by train, the rail share elsewhere is much lower. Where will Great British Railways be based? Well it won't be London.

This is not to argue that Britain isn't too London centric. It probably is and "levelling up" is a really good concept - just not the way it is being implemented. Look at Germany. What the country needs is something akin to Deutschland Takt rather than a high speed line. The HQ of GBR should be in London (with as much decision making devolved to the regions as possible). That doesn't mean that somewhere like Birmingham would not be an excellent location once we get 'GB takt', though that wouldn't be for decades even with enlightened policy & planning.

Was HS2 designed as a "trophy" policy. Higher speeds can be confused with reducing generalised journey times. You can see that I am a fan of the Swiss approach to transport planning.

 

[The Planner]

While HS2 will be good for the places it serves, I fear that places currently served by fast services will see a degradation. Milton Keynes, Coventry, Leicester, loughborough, Stoke, Stafford. Even Nottingham.
And suburban stations in the west mids will lose the easy connections at New St. Selly Oak - London will involve a lengthy trek to Curzon St. Or they will do M42/M40 instead.

Not the old New St to Curzon St is miles thing again....

 

[swt_passenger]

As someone who is a regular user of GWR and fed up as it is with having to stop at Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath spa etc etc, adding yet another stop at old oak common will most certainly not improve the journey. How many GWR trains will have to stop there by the way, does anyone know ?

All of them. It was in a Western Route Study a few years back and has been mentioned many times since. It’s why there are 8 platforms on the GW.

 

[Some guy]

It definitely will on a normal timetable between Euston and rugby junction there’s 18 Avanti services per hour(9 each way and that will go to 10 when the new Liverpool service is added on) and that’s not including the LNWR services so the WCML has needed a dedicated high speed line meaning stations that don’t get good Avanti services would be able to stop there due to less trains on the mainline

 

[Gems]

My life will never be so chaotic or regulated that I would have to pay a premium to arrive somewhere half hour earlier.

 

[Some guy]

My life will never be so chaotic or regulated that I would have to pay a premium to arrive somewhere half hour earlier.

Travelling at speeds of 200mph that’s something unheard of in this country onto HS1 enables over 125 speeds in the entire UK and that’s only from London to Dover

 

[Ken H]

Not the old New St to Curzon St is miles thing again....

You try it with a dodgy hip joint

 

[kentrailman]

All of them. It was in a Western Route Study a few years back and has been mentioned many times since. It’s why there are 8 platforms on the GW.

Really ? All GWR services will stop at Old Oak ? Oh dear. Many GWR long / middle distance services are already too slow and multi stop. This will definitely not be an improvement !