High Speed Two

[oleinves]

uk's rail reputation these days have always been on the bottom line if u compare it with other countries

but if other countries' inter-city networks are so succesful (mainly japan,germany,france etc) that means if we can encourage more people off the roads, we might be able to achieve similar results

of course this requires super-efficient trains (and probably better management)

we can't keep expanding the M-roads like M62 and M6 around birmingham, all this come at a cost


of course if HS2 could in decades later cover a wider network then i would say it is good

at the same time i want the government to speed up its hs2 review and consultation ; time is money

[Emperor Jake]

I wish British people would stop complaining about their wonderful rail system. You have trains that go 200 km/h and are actually useful for going all over the country!
Come to Australia and try to catch a train from Canberra to Melbourne or Sydney

[Jacko]

COMMENT REMOVED

[Badger]

You really have no idea, trains frequently run at well over 100mph on the ECML and WCML, not to mention stretches of the Western region main line and the Midland main line. You have an astonishingly blinkered and negative view of this countries railway system.

[Jacko]

oh. previous comment withdrawn.

[Badger]

oh. previous comment withdrawn.

Just think before you post. You seem to like trains otherwise you probably wouldn't visit this site, but get on the net and do some research about our railway network. It's not actually as s*** as you seem to think!

[JamieLei]

Indeed. As I've said many a time, other counties may have dedicated lines, but where else in the world do you get normal trains running at 100-125mph? Or even express commuter trains running at 100mph as is the norm in Britain? Plus our frequencies are some of the best in the world.

There are admittedly bad points, such as dodgy wiring, a confusing ticket system, and a severe shortage of stock. But there are bad points about every country's system. I'm longing to just be able to fricking sit down on suburban journeys like I can in Britain! In Japan, we might have trains that run to the second but you never get a seat and they're still bloody expensive. Want to travel between Tokyo and Osaka return on the Shinkansen? That'll be £220 please. No student discounts.

[oleinves]

for those who think my comment has gone a bit too far, look here

though i also have an appetite for looking out of the train, i'm supporting this project due to (and reinforcing my viewpoint) :

1. HS2 is an express travel for those who want it as fast as the rail, i may not be the one taking it , but it should be an alternative high-speed travel for those who want it
2.it will help to relieve the choking rail lines with freight, something better than just an upgrade
(3.) it would most probably have access to heathrow airport, allowing for better capital-airport connection, especially with crossrail

(what i meant in the previous post 'rail reputation' was related to the british rail R&D over the centuries since the steam era)

but remember, our world is surrounded with politics, and politicians
what if our government(s) (even after consultations) thought all this £32bn reserve was better spent on improving the economy / pay off the debt???
then all this HS2 would be down the bin

now i of course am grateful for these still-working many-decades-old rail networks

but you see, not every country's government has the same opinion

so some countries will get better (of either) air/water/rail/road transport, only a few countries will have a few of them

so we just have to adjust to the country's "speciality transport mode"

every country will always have its pros and cons

[Jacko]

badger you have a point. its not the railway, thats actually fine, its just not quite run properly. the network is fine (maybe slightly short... thanks mr beeching).
If it wasnt sold in franchises, and just done in trains go to here it would work better.

A bit more money in the actual railway network we have now, adding more coaches on and planning timetables a bit better would make the railways here much better!

[Ameecher]

The railway doesn't need more money thrown at it. It needs the current money thrown at it to be spent more wisely.

[Kevo00]

The railway doesn't need more money thrown at it. It needs the current money thrown at it to be spent more wisely.

This. We need to get the railway back to being a transport business, not a tax farming or rent seeking one.

[Moriarty]

I live in a county that's on the route and therefore opposing the thing. There's loads of stuff in the local papers about it the "no to hs2" campaigns, although a few articles are "yes for hs2" affairs.
Some of the things the No campaigns come up with are so asinine you wonder if they're actually yes campaigners trying to sabotage the no's. Someone posted a comment in a newspaper about how these trains were so fast that when a terrorist attacks one there will be lots of deaths due to their speed and will the politicians be jailed for murder?. I wish I was making that up. :-S

I can kind of understand why my own county opposes it (a waste of taxpayer money mind), but Coventry is miles from the line and their city council opposes it because they wanted a stop there. Bloody politics *mumble*

[Ameecher]

I live in a county that's on the route and therefore opposing the thing.

Misinterpreted that but got the gist once I'd read the rest of the post

[Geo Ghost]

Warning - Geo is speaking his mind again.

The more I look into HS2 and the more experience I have with railway networks... the less I am convinced that HS2 will benefit us.

I was at Crewe on Saturday and our train there was practically empty. Very few people on it at all.
On the way back it was the same with most of the people being football fans coming back from Crewe.

I saw a few Birmingham services going from Euston as well whilst waiting for my train and after coming back. Hardly anyone on them.
So now I'm wondering... what the hell is the justification between London and Birmingham?

The WCML is already a high-speed line. Ok, it's not 'HS1' speeds but it's still damn fast compared to any other mode of transport over the same distance.
Virgin operates very good services to a number of towns and cities which are all connected in some way. There's a couple of direct 'A-to-B' services but the majority have at least a couple of stops along route.
These are very frequent anyway and are good services. So why on Earth do we need another, albeit slightly faster, service between ONLY two cities - one of which is not exactly a major city in comparison. If there was another major city some distance such as London to Manchester... it might make sense. But that isn't going to come about for many many years.
Birmingham isn't a long distance from London in all fairness and it doesn't take long for trains to get there as it is.Why do we need a short High-Speed line that will not save masses of time?
To quote someone I once spoke to... "Why do you want to go so fast, it's only a small island." To be honest, I cannot counter that even if I wanted. Those are very true words!

If HS2 stretched from London RIGHT up to the North linking a number of major towns and cities along a new route... maybe so. It would work better. But at current it's just following an existing mainline that already has high-speed trains running on it. What's the point?! That's like building another Motorway next to another one but with no junctions between the start and end (in my eyes). It's just silly and doesn't really save much at all.

High Speed 1 works! It provides much faster services into Europe which links up with France's high-speed lines and also cuts the commuting time in the south-east region which we all know can be busy.
Also, HS1 has a number of stations along the route which really helps. if it was just "London to Dover" and that's it... Do I need to explain that one further?

If there were to be some High-Speed 2 line, I'd much rather see something like the Midland Mainline or East Coast mainline upgraded to take high-speed trains. East Coast probably being the better candidate as it's straighter and has less 'curves'. Hence why the Electra Project was developed primarily for that line after.

I did really support the idea of High-Speed 2 and high-speed rail in general. However now, I'm very concerned that it is not going to be worth while. By NO means am I taking the side of these nimby's and "Say No to HS2" people as the majority haven't a fracking clue what they are on about and come up with the biggest load of crap I've seen in years.
What I want to see now are the statistics for how many people travel between London and Birmingham and where people travel mostly too.

Hmm, new documentary time perhaps...

The railway doesn't need more money thrown at it. It needs the current money thrown at it to be spent more wisely.

Here here! Fully agree! We're paying much higher prices for train travel than before and I find it hard to see where that money actually goes.
I miss British Rail...

[Jacko]

And on that subject Rail fares are supposed to be going up AGAIN.

This is silly. At what point are trains going to be only for those rich upper class b******* like the ones that curently fill universities around here. (no offfense to anyone meant... sorry), And all the middle class people like us have to walk like it was in the 1800's???

[Geo Ghost]

like the ones that curently fill universities around here.

Excuse me?

[Chris]

These are very frequent anyway and are good services. So why on Earth do we need another, albeit slightly faster, service between ONLY two cities - one of which is not exactly a major city in comparison. If there was another major city some distance such as London to Manchester... it might make sense. But that isn't going to come about for many many years.

You may be slightly confused here, Birmingham is the UK's second city. It is the second largest. It is a major city. Larger and more important than Manchester. Furthermore, the idea of HS2 includes extensions to Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and this is phase one of the plan - you need to start building the line at some point, you can't just build all of it in one go, hence the first section of London-Birmingham.

Birmingham isn't a long distance from London in all fairness and it doesn't take long for trains to get there as it is.Why do we need a short High-Speed line that will not save masses of time?
To quote someone I once spoke to... "Why do you want to go so fast, it's only a small island." To be honest, I cannot counter that even if I wanted. Those are very true words!

Again, it is the first section of the line, and it does reduce the journey time by ~32% compared to the current fastest service, which is quite a large saving over a short line of ~100 miles. The UK is not that small, it is ~70% of the size of Germany, ~65% of Japan and ~45% of France. Theses countries have large HS rail networks and are not that much larger. Other much smaller countries have built HS lines/networks such as Belgium and The Netherlands, so that really is not much of an argument.

If HS2 stretched from London RIGHT up to the North linking a number of major towns and cities along a new route... maybe so. It would work better. But at current it's just following an existing mainline that already has high-speed trains running on it. What's the point?! That's like building another Motorway next to another one but with no junctions between the start and end (in my eyes). It's just silly and doesn't really save much at all.

Again, it will be linking up to other major cities, its just you have to start building it somewhere. Your analogy of the motorway is terrible. It takes a while to accelerate and decelerate to/from 250mph, and so including a lot of irrelevant stations that trains stop at would completely destroy the speed advantage of HS2. Cars and trains are completely different.

High Speed 1 works! It provides much faster services into Europe which links up with France's high-speed lines and also cuts the commuting time in the south-east region which we all know can be busy.
Also, HS1 has a number of stations along the route which really helps. if it was just "London to Dover" and that's it... Do I need to explain that one further?

HS1 has more stops on it, as it is paralleling a commuter line. HS2 is paralleling an InterCity line, and so has fewer stops. You will find when you look that in both cases, there are fewer stations on the HS services compared to normal services, so null point. Also busy commuting in the south east, really busy Intercity line which needs more capacity.

If there were to be some High-Speed 2 line, I'd much rather see something like the Midland Mainline or East Coast mainline upgraded to take high-speed trains. East Coast probably being the better candidate as it's straighter and has less 'curves'. Hence why the Electra Project was developed primarily for that line after.

HS2 will serve more people than one parallel to the MML would, and yes the ECML could be upgraded, but is is rather sparsely populated, with few major cities - actually no major cities bar Leeds, but thats on a spur isn't it - along the line, and so is a poor candidate for HS running.

[JamieLei]

These are very frequent anyway and are good services. So why on Earth do we need another, albeit slightly faster, service between ONLY two cities - one of which is not exactly a major city in comparison. If there was another major city some distance such as London to Manchester... it might make sense. But that isn't going to come about for many many years.

You may be slightly confused here, Birmingham is the UK's second city. It is the second largest. It is a major city. Larger and more important than Manchester. Furthermore, the idea of HS2 includes extensions to Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and this is phase one of the plan - you need to start building the line at some point, you can't just build all of it in one go, hence the first section of London-Birmingham.

Actually I'd disagree with you here. I'd say Manchester is much more important than Birmingham. The populations of the West Midlands Conurbation vs. Greater Manchester is only slightly different (Midlands is bigger by about 100,000 or so) but it's location is too close to London to be a major regional economic centre. It's big but it's far too close to London to be an independent region. The fact that you can now get on a train from Birmingham New Street and be in London Euston in 1h10 on the very fastest train puts it on par with Brighton spatio-temporal wise. Thus it's no surprise that many of the big corporations such as the BBC are skipping Birmingham in favour of Manchester and Glasgow. A high speed line between Manchester and London - that should be the first priority, but to Birmingham is a good start.

[Geo Ghost]

You may be slightly confused here, Birmingham is the UK's second city. It is the second largest. It is a major city. Larger and more important than Manchester. Furthermore, the idea of HS2 includes extensions to Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and this is phase one of the plan - you need to start building the line at some point, you can't just build all of it in one go, hence the first section of London-Birmingham.

For some reason, I really didn't see Birmingham as a 'major' city. Let alone second largest! Well that's completely changed a few of my thoughts Even on a map it doesn't appear that large to me for some reason.
I know the plan will extend up to Manchester and eventually the far North but something about only London to Birmingham to start with... I'm really not convinced it's going to be justified to start with. I was before but now after looking deeper into things and experiencing travelling up and down the west coast a number of times... I'm really not sure where I stand with the plan any more. I don't support it, yet I'm not against it either.

Again, it is the first section of the line, and it does reduce the journey time by ~32% compared to the current fastest service, which is quite a large saving over a short line of ~100 miles. The UK is not that small, it is ~70% of the size of Germany, ~65% of Japan and ~45% of France. Theses countries have large HS rail networks and are not that much larger.

Yes, I do agree it does cut the journey time. Approx 26 minutes faster (if I've done the calculations right) compared with the 1h 22m fastest route. Knocks it down to an hour indeed but that's only if it really does get cut by 32% in the end. Even then, what does 20 minutes shall we say really save compared with the WCML? The 1h 22m service to Birmingham from London usually has two stops. Milton Keynes and Coventary. For a rough estimate, take about 4-5 minutes out of each stop (which at a guess is probably how long it would take to slow down, stop, load/unload and then get up to speed again) and we having a saving of about 10-15 minutes - and that really doesn't seem much of a saving to be honest with you.
However, on the other side of the coin though, when (or if) the route extends far north, then we'll see a significant amount of time saved which is brilliant! But only if it gets built to that specification and if people really have a need to use it. If it does get built as a high-speed route right up to the far north and people do use it to it's potential, then fair play. It will definitely be a great asset to the transport network! But that's a big if... More on that later.
As for other countries, they have very different infrastructures and population densities so I really can't compare them. Japan for instance has a massive population so High-Speed rail for them is key to move as many people about as quickly as possible. Also, 45% the size of France is quite a substantial difference really But remember, whilst each country isn't perhaps 'large' they are all connected together with one another as part of mainland Europe (excluding Japan obviously) which is well... makes the UK look very much like just a small island.

Your analogy of the motorway is terrible. It takes a while to accelerate and decelerate to/from 250mph, and so including a lot of irrelevant stations that trains stop at would completely destroy the speed advantage of HS2. Cars and trains are completely different.

I disagree. It was worse than terrible! I'm not entirely sure where on earth I was going with that one. I think I was just desperate to make up some sort of analogy for no valid reason. Though on the subject of stations and speed advantage, the ideal solution to that would be for some trains to 'stop' at places along the route and others to run straight from A-to-B non-stop. Surely that increases the passenger potential and allows other areas to use it. Only problem is, there's not really many places you can stop off at along that route. Milton Keynes and Northampton maybe but that's really about it which is pointless. Unless you possibly have some 'spur' that goes off to one or two major towns or transport hubs. Though again, that's increasing the cost and is there really a significant need for that too.

HS1 has more stops on it, as it is paralleling a commuter line. HS2 is paralleling an InterCity line, and so has fewer stops. You will find when you look that in both cases, there are fewer stations on the HS services compared to normal services, so null point. Also busy commuting in the south east, really busy Intercity line which needs more capacity.

Indeed so and I realise that. But even on Intercity lines, there are some 'mid way' points along the route for the majority of services. Very few are just direct A-to-B across the country. With a fully completed High-Speed route then I guess Birmingham would become one of these 'mid points' in a way. Like I said before, I really want to find some 'stats and figures' of where people travel too along that region of the country and how many do. Especially after my trip up North on Saturday with a pretty empty train in both directions! Same the week before last I saw some friends off who were going up towards Lancaster and the train wasn't near full. Ok, there were a fair number of people on board but not masses but any stretch of the word. I know it's possible to find such figures and stats but I cannot remember where on earth from!
Though when you mention about intercity lines needing more capacity... I must admit I can agree with that completely depending on the line.
The East Coast Mainline at times has stuff shooting up and down it every few minutes but then has times where it's very quiet for long stretches of time. The West Coast Mainline though... any time I'm there I'm forever seeing trains running up and down it. Even at Euston there's departures pretty much ever couple of minutes. So yes, I will agree there assuming that's what you mean regarding capacity. HS2 would certainly free up many services on the WCML (or at least in theory) and perhaps open it up to more rail freight. Or at least I would really really hope so.

HS2 will serve more people than one parallel to the MML would, and yes the ECML could be upgraded, but is is rather sparsely populated, with few major cities - actually no major cities bar Leeds, but thats on a spur isn't it - along the line, and so is a poor candidate for HS running.

On second thoughts, scrap what I said about the MML. That's got enough going on I think and there's not really any reasonably decent places will Dery of Sheffield. They'd be better off coming off high-speed 'spurs' perhaps. Though I'd still like to see higher speeds on the ECML connecting London and the North. I'm not so much referring to 'HS1 speeds'. More faster speeds along the route to the North. I can think of a few cities along the route that would benefit. Not just as cities but as transport hubs as well. Doncaster, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh spring to mind for that one because of all the other transport links that join to them as well. Peterborough might benefit but then again, trains are reasonably fast from there to London already. Glasgow... Not so much as that links with the West Coast Mainline already with the Pendolino high speed services.


To top it off I'd like to make it clear to everyone that I am by no means against High-Speed 2 or high-speed rail in general. I love the idea of having a fast network across the country and I can see the benefits with it.
However, I also see the down-sides too which concern me greatly.
I would love to see the High-Speed 2 line built from London to the north. But if it flopped or it did not come out nearly as great as predicted, I would be gutted to see such an ambitious project not succeed as it should. Partly because all the bloody nimby's and "I don't want HS2!" morons, who the majority of which have no idea what the bloody hell they are talking about, will never shut up about it and that'll be the end to any future rail projects no doubt.
I want to be proven wrong in what I say. I want to hope that there are indeed hundreds of people who will use it everyday. I want to believe that it will really revolutionise rail travel in this country and help the railway infrastructure. Possibly even aid future rail projects or more high-speed rail. I want to see it!
Another thing on my mind is cost. Rail travel is already extortionate at times and to get any long-distance stuff you really have to book quite far in advance. HS2 will no doubt cost even more for being slightly faster. Will people want to pay even more again just to save a bit of time?

Class 165, I really appreciate you quoting what I say and debating it Even more so that it wasn't done in a rude or "I know better than you" manner which I see very often in places these days and puts me off talking to people instantly. So many thanks for debating and reassuring me on a few things actually in that sense. Though still, I do have concerns as you've probably read.


And in the time I've been writing this Jamie has posted. There's not much I can say to that as I pretty much agree with what is said there. Though I'm curious to know where the 1h10 time came from? I couldn't find services that fast. if that does exist then... well, read my second paragraph above and that'll pretty much sum up my thoughts Doesn't seem to save much time at all.

[Kevo00]

And on that subject Rail fares are supposed to be going up AGAIN.

This is silly. At what point are trains going to be only for those rich upper class b******* like the ones that curently fill universities around here. (no offfense to anyone meant... sorry), And all the middle class people like us have to walk like it was in the 1800's???

Someone needs to do some growing up, desperately. In any case, I thought you lived on the south coast somewhere - Portsmouth and Sussex Universities are not so exclusive. Southampton is Russell Group, true, but definitely one of the lesser Russell Group unis. Besides, you are 14 now so pay half price, when you are 16 you will be able to get a railcard, and you will not pay full price train fares until you are 25...11 years away. Parroting the Daily Mail is not big or clever either.

As to the HS2 issue - I think Geo does have a point in the sense that there are plenty of WCML trains that run virtually empty (not due to high ticket prices but due to lack of demand for the off-peak tickets), and the challenge will be making sure that HS2 journeys and the freed up WCML journeys are priced optimally to encourage 75%+ loadings.