Archive for August 2019
Is Crossrail ‘complex’? It’s complicated
Crossrail is not ‘complicated’, says Crossrail chief executive Mark Wild, but the complex nature of the project is ‘not lost‘ on him (according to ‘Rail’ magazine).
But surely, if Mr Wild is saying ‘Crossrail is not complicated’, then the ‘complex nature of the project’ is ‘lost on him’?
Beleben visits some fake HS2 claims
“Just outside Paddington” is a vast building site turning a run down industrial area and old railway depot into Old Oak HS2 railway station, according to the IanVisits blog (20 Aug 2019), which was given site access to take pictures of dumper trucks and rubble.
According to the IV blogpost, “The biggest problem affecting the railways today is a lack of capacity to handle the surging numbers of people who want to travel by train. So something needs to be done. Yes, they could upgrade the existing lines, but that was tried with the West Coast Mainline Upgrade, and it delivered a fairly modest upgrade at a massive £14.5 billion cost.”
The West Coast Route Modernisation did not cost £14.5 billion, and its upgrade component (£2.5 billion) enabled large increases in capacity (e.g., London to Manchester intercity went from one train per hour, to three).
At Euston, “it’s about fixing the bottleneck on the approach to the station”, according to the IV blog.
[Taking a look at HS2’s huge Old Oak Common station, Ian Visits blog, 20 Aug 2019]
The station has enough platforms, but not enough railway tracks to get in and out, so trains have to wait for space in the tunnels to get into the station. And back out again. That’s a huge impediment to increasing the numbers of trains that commuters from North London and beyond can use.
Building not just more platforms for HS2, but critically, the extra tunnels for those trains to use shifts intercity services to the HS2 line, releasing lots of capacity in the old tunnels for suburban services.If that doesn’t sound too important, then where’s the UK’s most congested train… it’s the 17:46 out of Euston which carries more than twice the number of passengers that it’s designed for. When completed, HS2 is expected to more than double the number of seats out of Euston station during peak hours.
Actually, constructing HS2 into Euston appears to require a permanent reduction in classic capacity into the station. There is no sign of a “releasing lots of capacity in the old tunnels for suburban services”.
Crowding on Euston commuter trains is not a problem best addressed by spending £60 to £105 (?) billion on HS2. The first go-to should be the use of space efficient rolling stock, as on Thameslink and Greater Anglia. If the 17:46 out of Euston in 2018 had been operated by a 10-carriage Greater Anglia ‘Aventra’, what would the load factor have been ?
[Taking a look at HS2’s huge Old Oak Common station, Ian Visits blog, 20 Aug 2019]
It’s been badly branded as a high-speed line — derided as shaving a few insignificant minutes off trips for rich businessmen. No one ever seems to complain about making it easier for families visiting each other, it’s always the rich business men.
The HS2 business case is built around time savings for business users, and a supposed shortage of capacity in the peaks. How many families travel by rail, in the peaks, to visit each other?
Doubling down on Doncaster drivel
There are 1720 peak seats per hour for rail travel between Doncaster and Leeds. After HS2 opens in 2033, this is expected to MORE THAN DOUBLE to 4860 seats/hour, according to ‘Rail’ magazine fantasist and NCHSR lecturer Gareth Dennis.
This claim appears to be based on a tweet from HS2 Ltd, which stated that the evening rush hour seated capacity on the ‘Doncaster corridor’ would increase from 1,720 in 2017, to 4,860 ‘with HS2’.
Contrary to what was claimed by Mr Dennis, rush hour seated capacity between Doncaster and Leeds is not expected to MORE THAN DOUBLE to 4860 seats per hour with HS2. Because HS2 trains could not stop at Doncaster, the line would not go to Doncaster, and there is no HS2 station planned for Doncaster.
Mr Dennis has taken an absurd Department for Transport claim about ‘Doncaster corridor’ capacity (tweeted by HS2 Ltd) and made it his own, by claiming the so-called ‘capacity between Doncaster and Leeds’ includes (obviously non-existent) Leeds to Doncaster HS2 trains.
Make Central Great at the Common
Reactivating the Great Central route to Rugby and Leicester with new connections to the West Coast and Midland Main lines would be much cheaper, less disruptive, and greener than building HS2. But how could trains from ‘GCR2’ be accommodated in London?
The Old Oak site intended for HS2 has room for a 12-platform long distance station, as can be seen by HS2 Ltd’s visualisation of the footprint of a twelve platform HS2 terminus station at Old Oak.
A new long-distance (non-HS2) station at Old Oak could be built with through tracks to Paddington, but how many trains could continue to Paddington would depend on Crossrail enabling vacation of more surface platforms there. At present, Crossrail is being planned as a lop-sided project, with more services operating in east London, than in the west.
Woodland of confusion
The UK has roughly one million hectares of ancient woodland, according to an article attributed to Ian Walmsley (Modern Railways magazine, presumably August 2019).
But according to the Woodland Trust (2000), the figure is more like 309,000 hectares (excluding Northern Ireland).
No doubt a fair bit of the remaining ancient woodland must be in Scotland. Figures for how much there is in England, do not seem to be readily available.
Tom has left the building
Former Tony Blair spin doctor Tom Kelly has left High Speed 2 Ltd after over five and a half years, New Civil Engineer revealed on 14 August (then took the story offline, and then put it back again).
Mr Kelly, who utterly failed to turn public opinion on HS2, is understood to have left HS2 Ltd at the start of August. The company ‘has lined up Aileen Thompson as Kelly’s replacement’.
[HS2 director for stakeholder engagement exits, Tim Clark, NCE, 15 Aug, 2019]
Kelly’s departure also comes weeks after the departure of HS2’s phase one managing director Jim Crawford.
[…]
Earlier this month the Serious Fraud Office also launched a call for evidence regarding whether HS2 had breached the law relating to the acquisition of properties along the route.
Tramway to Curzon HS2 ‘delayed four years’ by Curzon HS2
The “£137 million” extension of the West Midlands Metro tramway to the proposed Curzon HS2 station and Birmingham ‘Eastside’ may not be operational until 2026, the BBC “understands“.
TfWM chief Laura Shoaf regrets a possible four-year delay in delivery of this boondoggle
‘Initially earmarked for a 2022 opening’, the extension might now have to be ‘built in two halves and connected in the middle once HS2 has built its station’.
This potheaded scheme forms part of Transport for West Midlands’ bizarre plan to build a tramway from central Birmingham to Elmdon airport and the HS2 ‘interchange’ at Middle Beetroot Bickenhill, at a cost probably exceeding £1,000 million.
