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Post by snowman on Jan 15, 2009 16:24:18 GMT
Government has published details of high speed line 2 proposals (warning it is a large file) which is London - Heathrow - west Midlands - and possibly North High speed 1 is the St Pancras - Channel Tunnel line which is already open www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedtwo/highspeedtwo.pdf
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Post by john on Jan 16, 2009 0:39:37 GMT
Government has published details of high speed line 2 proposals (warning it is a large file) which is London - Heathrow - west Midlands - and possibly North High speed 1 is the St Pancras - Channel Tunnel line which is already open www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedtwo/highspeedtwo.pdfI read something about this in the London Lite (not the most intellectual publication i know) regarding the 3rd runway at Heathrow. Apparently they were saying that it could be "bullet train" like
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2009 9:19:20 GMT
Government has published details of high speed line 2 proposals (warning it is a large file) which is London - Heathrow - west Midlands - and possibly North High speed 1 is the St Pancras - Channel Tunnel line which is already open www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/highspeedtwo/highspeedtwo.pdfIt seems a bit pointless unless its a minor upgrade. The Distance from the West Midland to Heathrow is not grat and the line to Euston is already fast. The only bit missing is the link to Heathrow,
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2009 11:40:55 GMT
The line to Euston is only 125mph at its fastest, the idea for High Speed Two is that trains will be able to run up to possibly 200mph.
Also the intercity services on the WCML have to share the track with freight and local services, all of which are showing growth and it is predicted that the southern section of the route will be overloaded in the next fifteen or so years. The recent upgrade did not increase capacity while the pathing requirements to accommodate all of these services obviously impact on the number and speed of long distance ones.
A new dedicated high speed railway, as are used all over Europe, would allow services to run at their maximum potential without the need to accommodate slower services, and also frees up space on the WCML allowing it to support continued growth.
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Post by snowman on Aug 14, 2009 5:44:40 GMT
The Government has organised a conference on HS2 on 9th Sept Should be a lot more info on latest thinking on UK's High Speed lines available from this date
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2009 8:04:18 GMT
The line to Euston is only 125mph at its fastest, the idea for High Speed Two is that trains will be able to run up to possibly 200mph. Also the intercity services on the WCML have to share the track with freight and local services, all of which are showing growth and it is predicted that the southern section of the route will be overloaded in the next fifteen or so years. The recent upgrade did not increase capacity while the pathing requirements to accommodate all of these services obviously impact on the number and speed of long distance ones. A new dedicated high speed railway, as are used all over Europe, would allow services to run at their maximum potential without the need to accommodate slower services, and also frees up space on the WCML allowing it to support continued growth. Why though. Euston to West Midlands is a short distance. A 200mph train would not reduce it drasitically. It would also reduce the capicity of the line. The higher the speed the longer the breaking distances & the greater the distance between trains. Much of the line is duel tracked so there is limited mixing of slow & fast trains. There is also little freight and in any case a HS line does little to provided more capacity for freight. Europe is a very different thing to the UK. Most of the European Counties are far larger then the UK. It is also a single land mass with many trains traveling between countries so you are talking of journies of several hundred miles. It is largely a myth that the existing lines are at capacity. They are bottle neckes but overall the existing lines have plenty of capacity. The money would be far better spent on improving the existing network rather then on HS lines which for the UK offer little real benefit. There is plenty of scope for providing more through services particulary through London. So journies from say Cardiff To Birmingham, Cardiff to Scotland, Brighton to Scotland etc. That provides a real benfit at a tfraction of the costs. For the average travelly a 200mph train would make almost no difference you can already do it in just over an 1 Hour. A HST might do it in 40 minutes. It makes no difference to journey times to & from the stations at either end so instead of the total door to door time of currently about 2 hours it becomes 1 hour 40. Its not really significant.
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Post by snowman on Aug 16, 2009 12:38:18 GMT
The line to Euston is only 125mph at its fastest, the idea for High Speed Two is that trains will be able to run up to possibly 200mph. Also the intercity services on the WCML have to share the track with freight and local services, all of which are showing growth and it is predicted that the southern section of the route will be overloaded in the next fifteen or so years. The recent upgrade did not increase capacity while the pathing requirements to accommodate all of these services obviously impact on the number and speed of long distance ones. A new dedicated high speed railway, as are used all over Europe, would allow services to run at their maximum potential without the need to accommodate slower services, and also frees up space on the WCML allowing it to support continued growth. Why though. Euston to West Midlands is a short distance. A 200mph train would not reduce it drasitically. It would also reduce the capicity of the line. The higher the speed the longer the breaking distances & the greater the distance between trains. Much of the line is duel tracked so there is limited mixing of slow & fast trains. There is also little freight and in any case a HS line does little to provided more capacity for freight. Europe is a very different thing to the UK. Most of the European Counties are far larger then the UK. It is also a single land mass with many trains traveling between countries so you are talking of journies of several hundred miles. It is largely a myth that the existing lines are at capacity. They are bottle neckes but overall the existing lines have plenty of capacity. The money would be far better spent on improving the existing network rather then on HS lines which for the UK offer little real benefit. The West Coast main line is expected to be at capacity within a few years. The modernisation isnow seen as a mistake when you look at money spent vs cost of a new line and the relative capacities that now exist v what a new line would have given. There is a common misconception about high speed lines freeing capacity. Capacity is opimised when every train runs at a similar speed and covers the same distance in same time. The capacity problem is the mid speed trains 90mph - 115mph. Put them on the fast tracks you delay the non-stop intercity trains, put them on slow lines, they keep catching up stoppers or freight. By moving high speed trains (150mph +) the existing fast tracks can be used for 100mph trains. Most outer suburban commuter trains run non-stop for 10-20 miles at 100mph speed. Many London commuter lines already have capacity limits at the peaks and railtrack cannot offer more paths.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2009 13:14:23 GMT
Why though. Euston to West Midlands is a short distance. A 200mph train would not reduce it drasitically. The idea of HS2 is to provide a high speed service that runs between London and Scotland, not just to the West Midlands. Although I would not agree that saving half an hour, a 37% reduction, on times between London and Birmingham is insignificant. It would also reduce the capicity of the line. The higher the speed the longer the breaking distances & the greater the distance between trains. I think you are misunderstanding what HS2 is. Like HS1 it is a totally new and separate route dedicated to high speed services. It will have its own tracks so there would be no other services competing for capacity. And as the high speed services would replace existing Inter City services ones it removes trains from the WCML, freeing up capacity for more regional services on one of the busiest and fastest growing sections on the railway network between Euston and Rugby. There is also little freight and in any case a HS line does little to provided more capacity for freight. The WCML is the major north-south artery for rail freight, and is supposedly one of the busiest freight routes in Europe. At the southern end it takes all northbound freight that comes from the port of Tilbury and the channel tunnel. To say there is little freight is just blatantly untrue. There is plenty of scope for providing more through services particulary through London. So journies from say Cardiff To Birmingham, Cardiff to Scotland, Brighton to Scotland etc. That provides a real benfit at a tfraction of the costs. Those are entirely different things to the aims of HS2. They may provide benefits of their own, but suggesting them as an alternative solution makes no sense at all. It is like saying they should put a new bus route in Harrow to address problems in Bromley. The two major purposes of HS2 are to provide extra capacity and make rail travel to London more viable to people coming from the west midlands (by car) and the north west and Scotland (short haul flights) through decreased journey times. Those are the dominant transport forms from those areas, unlike the ECML where rail usage is high from Yorkshire and the north east. Also, there are already regular services between Cardiff and Birmingham. I used to regularly use them. The only real problem with those is that they take too long (2 hours) given the relatively short distance. But the cost of upgrading that route compared to the number of people using it would offer a much lower cost-benefit ratio than HS2. For the average travelly a 200mph train would make almost no difference you can already do it in just over an 1 Hour. A HST might do it in 40 minutes. It makes no difference to journey times to & from the stations at either end so instead of the total door to door time of currently about 2 hours it becomes 1 hour 40. Its not really significant. I really have no idea what you are referring to?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2009 19:34:58 GMT
I'm with 'someone' on this one. The HS2 project is aimed at increasing capacity and providing significant improvements to longer distance journeys to and from Manchester and Scotland.
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Post by snowman on Aug 21, 2009 7:10:51 GMT
The line may be extended to Scotland (although they have their own transport budget these days), according to Modern Railways magazine, no exact routing has been set, one thought is to make a loop via Heathrow, another to go direct (via Milton Keynes area), to Midlands, then going North West towards Lancashire, or North East towards Yorkshire isn't clear (It could even be Y shaped like France's LGV Atlantic) and serve both. Spurs will allow trains to join existing lines into major city centres like Birmingham.
It seems that provision for 4 tracks south of Midlands is a possibility
Ignore the 250mph trains in some media, top speed will be around 200mph mark as power consumption to overcome aerodynamic drag almost doubles to get the extra 50mph. Time saving is only a few minutes for the higher speed, and you can lose a few minutes by a slow speed approach to a station, so much better to sort existing approach tracks to existing stations as it benefits all trains using it.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2010 22:28:42 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2010 23:27:05 GMT
WHEN they come up with the cash, maybe! Until then, its just an official 'lines on a map' scenario. Now, where was that one about 'The Chelney Line...............? ;D
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Post by vjaska on Mar 17, 2010 0:50:49 GMT
The thing is that the limited cash we do have would be better used on upgrading our existing railway network rather than on fancy plans like Crossrail and HS2. Although better, the railways are still not perfect and I'd rather see them being upgraded to improve our current service.
I also don't want to see huge chunks of natural beauty such as the Chilterns being destroyed. I know I'm not the biggest fan of the environment but why destroy it for a politicians dream?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2010 22:48:36 GMT
You can't really upgrade the WCML anymore as it's at capacity and full of trains going at different speeds. HS2 will relieve much needed capacity for commuter services on the classic line and allow for some degree of path standardisation.
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Post by vjaska on Mar 18, 2010 0:01:32 GMT
You can't really upgrade the WCML anymore as it's at capacity and full of trains going at different speeds. HS2 will relieve much needed capacity for commuter services on the classic line and allow for some degree of path standardisation. I didn't specifically say the WCML, I said the money would betetr off be put into the whole railway system as whole, improving rolling stock, signalling, the quality of stations etc. We also shouldnt be destroying huge parts of English natural beauty in the process. Why not use priority systems at stations instead which allows the express to pass through, would save wasting money on building a new line. High speed lines work in other countries such as France as cities are much more spaced out between each other than in this country.
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