Great balls of fire

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the Beleben blog is banned from transport authority Centro’s Go HS2 website and Twitter feed. What else would one expect from a campaign that prioritises Londonicentric prestige high speed rail for businessmen, over fixing the local transport that normal people have to use on a daily basis?

But on August 9, someone called Chris Neville-Smith left a couple of comments that referred to this blog, on Go HS2’s article ‘Many will benefit from HS2 across the UK‘:

August 9, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Chris Neville-Smith says:

Out of interest, are 51m et al planning to comment on the latest idea of an “alternative”? it’s to free up traffic on the WCML by … wait for it … diverting London – Birmingham trains via the Chiltern line:

https://beleben.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/rolling-stock-is-cheaper-than-infrastructure/

I don’t know what Birmingham’s reaction will be to sticking at least on extra 20 minutes on journey time will be, but I can guess. I also don’t think that bodes well for the intermediate stations on the Chiltern line (if the recent experience of intermediate stations on the WCML is anything to go by). But the biggest irony is that Coventry will be left with no inter-city services to London AT ALL, which seems a little hypocritical for a blog writer who complains of all these communities being bypassed by HS2. Would Coventry City Council care to comment?

August 9, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Chris Neville-Smith says:

Oh, and I’m well aware of the flaw in the chart on that link, but I was too busy collapsing helpless with laughter to rebut that.

Is Go HS2 commenter Mr Neville-Smith the person featured on the oft-viewed Pop Idol video? If so, it appears that his singing is better than his transport analysis. Because routeing London — Birmingham intercity trains via the Chiltern Main Line does not ‘stick at least on extra 20 minutes on the journey time’. Nor does it require cessation of Chiltern local services.

Claim 1

“Routeing London — Birmingham intercity trains via the Chiltern Main Line would involve sticking at least an extra 20 minutes on journey time”.

Rebuttal 1

With the same number of intermediate stops, and modern traction, a London — Birmingham Chiltern Electric journey would be less than ten minutes longer than the 2012 West Coast one. Actually, considering the evidence from present-day timings with diesel trains, an electric Chiltern intercity could be expected to run only 5 minutes slower than its 2012 West Coast equivalent.

Following around £10 billion of expenditure on the West Coast route, Virgin Trains between Euston and New Street take around 1 hour 25 minutes, with three intermediate stops.

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But following less than £1 billion of expenditure on restoring the Chiltern Main Line, Chiltern Railways manage to run trains between Marylebone and Moor Street in around 1 hour 40 minutes, with four stops.

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With intermediate stops reduced to 2, journey times of 90 minutes are achieved today.

The Rail Package 6 base proposition is to electrify and re-signal the Chiltern Main Line, bringing it up to modern standards; and provide platforming in London and the West Midlands for a high capacity intercity service (the current platforms at Moor Street and Marylebone are too short).

It would be possible to run three intercity trains per direction per hour between Snow Hill and Old Oak Common — with one or two intermediate stops — in less than 90 minutes. And with a 16-carriage consist, the seating capacity would be similar to the current Euston and Marylebone services *combined*.

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Claim 2

‘Moving London – West Midlands intercity trains to Chiltern would not bode well for the intermediate stations on the line (if the recent experience of intermediate stations on the WCML is anything to go by).’

Rebuttal 2

The “recent experience of intermediate stations on the WCML” isn’t anything to go by.

Currently, the WCML Fast Lines have to carry intercity passenger trains to Birmingham, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. And because of the lack of gauge-cleared alternatives, the WCML is the principal North — South railfreight artery as well. So the number of paths used is higher than on Chiltern.

Most of the stations that have closed on the West Coast Main Line in recent years had very low levels of usage (e.g. Wedgwood, Etruria, Norton Bridge, Ditton Junction). As there is a tradeoff between line capacity and stopping pattern, there is little point in stopping a 160-tonne train to pick up a couple of passengers making a 10-kilometre-long journey. Such services are more economically achieved with a bus.

The Rail Package 6 approach is to transfer London — West Midlands intercity to Chiltern, and move freight off the WCML wherever possible by using Felixstowe — Nuneaton, the GN/GE Joint line (Eastern Freight Corridor), etc.

Path utilisation on the Chiltern Main Line is less intensive, and it should be evident from other lines that three fast trains per hour would not require suppression of a local service. Furthermore, key sections of the line in the London and West Midlands areas were previously four-tracked (and are four-trackable).

Claim 3

“Oh, and I’m well aware of the flaw in the chart on that link, but I was too busy collapsing helpless with laughter to rebut that.”

Rebuttal 3

I don’t find propagandists’ advocacy of creating further excess rail capacity — at a cost of £40 billion — to be particularly amusing, when most train seats are empty, most of the time. The chart was produced by the Department for Transport. Since Mr Neville-Smith hasn’t stated what the “flaw” is, it’s impossible to comment further.

Claim 4

“The biggest irony is that Coventry would be left with no inter-city services to London AT ALL, which seems a little hypocritical for a blog writer who complains of all these communities being bypassed by HS2.”

Rebuttal 4

According to the Go HS2 campaign, HS2 frees up capacity for more freight and regional services on the WCML. Not intercity services. But HS2 intercity would only serve one West Midlands city, i.e. Birmingham. Coventry’s current 3-fast-trains per hour service arises from its position on the Birmingham to London West Coast route. And as I reported on 15 June, HS2 chief engineer Andrew McNaughton has stated:

‘If you stand on Milton Keynes platform during morning peak, you’ll see lots of Pendolino trains but they don’t stop; they’re all full of people going to Manchester. In 2025, when HS2 opens, they’re gone. Trains will stop at Milton Keynes every 10 minutes.’

• In the HS2 Ltd/Go HS2 scenario, the Birmingham to London fast service would move to HS2 and not serve Coventry.
• In the Rail Package 6 scenario, the Birmingham to London fast service would move to Chiltern and not run through Coventry.

In both scenarios, Coventry would retain a semi-fast service to London Euston.

In RP6, there is also the possibility of splitting and joining London trains at Leamington Spa, to provide through fast services from Coventry (and possibly Kenilworth) to Old Oak Common.

Unlike HS2-Curzon Street, Snow Hill is not a dead end station. So the RP6 scenario would permit through fast trains to London to Stourbridge, Wolverhampton, and Walsall; and bring West Bromwich within 100 minutes of London.

Go HS2’s vapid endorsement of Mr Neville-Smith’s comment was that “Such schemes [presumably RP6] don’t solve the dilemma for the West Midlands and ignore routes north”. The real “dilemma” for advocates of a £20 billion high speed railway from the West Midlands to London is that

• there is no capacity or environmental case, and
• five of the seven metropolitan boroughs would see no journey time benefit.

In fact, large parts of the other two boroughs would see no journey time benefit, because of the bad connectivity.

Mr Neville-Smith mentioned the 51m proposals. They are focused on the West Coast Main Line, and have a different emphasis to RP6. Along with its inclusion of a Stafford by-pass, perception of 51m has been affected by the political sensitivity of past disruption and cost overruns that happened during the 1997 – 2008 WCML modernisation.

Summary

Transferring West Midlands intercity trains to the Chiltern Main Line

• benefits the region as a whole, with notable connectivity gains in Walsall, Solihull, and West Bromwich
• frees paths on West Coast for more trains from Euston to North West England.