HS2, whats the current status ?
Discussion
Digga said:
There can surely be not better time to re-animate I.K. Brunel?
Why?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Bru...
The Thames Tunnel killed workers, was heavily delayed and injured IKB
Clifton Suspension Bridge wasn't completed by him, and it was a changed design from his
Great Western was an amazing project but not without issues (selection of broad gauge, by example - technically right but incompatible, creating a longer term challenge...)
The atmospheric railway was an engineers folly. Interesting concept but flawed.
IKB reminds me of Musk in some ways. A maverick, brilliant mind, a disruptor but also flawed.
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple b
ksrobinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple bksUpgrading the East Coast line and building HS3 makes more sense in my view.
Fittster said:
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple bksrobinessex said:
Fittster said:
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple bksAnd the longer trains are, the slower they are; especially with the way the HSTs work - two locos with carriages between them. Further, there aren't any more locomotives available for service when they're needed. If they're in working order, they're in use (at least in the south east).
The line speeds are already at the fastest they can realistically be - we need new, straight, railways that can be run at high speed.
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple bks
But other than that, his suggestions shows that his knowledge of railways is as comprehensive as mine is of quantum mechanics:
"The object of the exercise is to maximise passenger volume" - no it's not and never has been. See below.
"Vanity project" - there are plenty of stories in the news every week about "chaos on the railways," and a fair few of them are caused by the railways trying to run a nintensive service at nearly 100% capacity. When things go wrong, as they so often do, be it a derailment or a signal failure or a train failure or a broken rail or whatever, it results in the entire service being f
ked until someone gets out to sort it out. What is needed more than anything is additional capacity, and HS2 gives that in bucketloads by taking the strain off existing lines, especially the WCML. If that constitutes a "vanity project" I'm all for vanity projects."Increase train lengths by 50%" - platforms would need extending and there's not always room to do it because there would be bridges and points in the way. Many signalling systems would also need to be upgraded. And that's before we even start to think of the never-ending disruption that it would cause if, for example, you set about extending the platforms at Waterloo half way to Vauxhall or those at Paddington half way to Royal Oak
"Double deck the trains" - they won't fit under the British loading gauge. There were a couple of double deck EMUs introduced in 1949 on the Southern Region which were not a success and were not replaced after they were scrapped in the early 70s.
All we want now is a nutcase to come along with the other "simple" solutions of "trains drawing up twice in platforms," and a spokesperson from the "rip all the tracks up and convert them to roads" brigade, and we'll have a full house
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Railway prices are not even in normal ballpark figures, everything costs far more than it really should in the real world, there are restrictions on where items can be sourced, only approved supplier's can be used, and many parts are eye wateringly expensive , and if you want a brand spanking new train, its approximately 1.3 to 1.5m pounds. ........ per car (each train is made up of multiples of "cars ", from two to four in our case. Four years ago "we " spent 96 million on new rolling stock to replace aged units, again now we have an order in for yet more units from Spanish builder Kaf, as Bombardier in Derby no longer make diesel units (they are however building us electric trains)"We " are the banks in essence, who own the trains, and lease them to the train operators.
Another issue with running more and longer trains, is the amount of free space between trains running on an increasingly congested network, simply you cannot just add more units, as it will actually reduce running speed, and lengthen journey times, plus as mentioned longer trains need longer platforms.
Edited by rigga on Thursday 6th December 21:28
Fittster said:
robinessex said:
Fittster said:
Why the hate for HS2 and not for crossrail?
Cross rail seems sensible. HS2 is a vanity project by the government. All the suppsed revenue generation is comple bksLondon to Birmingham, I really do not see the point on a cost verses time gain or capacity, as has been said far better to spend the money on the east cost main line,
the talk of a northern powerhouse is a buls
t phrase that means nothing,HS2 is a vanity project that will cut investment in the rest of the infrastructure, money better spent elsewhere, modern signalling would be a start, this would allow greater capacity.
Vaud said:
Northern powerhouse is a handy political phrase,.
Connecting Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds and York with a higher speed link makes a lot of sense for economic development (esp to Manchester airport)
Any way of getting across the country rather than just up/down it would be good.Connecting Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds and York with a higher speed link makes a lot of sense for economic development (esp to Manchester airport)
Regarding the capacity argument; I went from Gerrards Cross to Birmingham last Tuesday morning. 1 change at Banbury.
1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
Return jouney leaving Birmingham the following day; both trains were similarly empty.
1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
Return jouney leaving Birmingham the following day; both trains were similarly empty.
steveT350C said:
Regarding the capacity argument; I went from Gerrards Cross to Birmingham last Tuesday morning. 1 change at Banbury.
1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
Return jouney leaving Birmingham the following day; both trains were similarly empty.
You've misunderstood the use of the word "capacity" in this context.1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
Return jouney leaving Birmingham the following day; both trains were similarly empty.
We are talking about the physical capacity of the railways to run trains, not the capacity on trains ie.enough seats for the bums that want to sit on them.
steveT350C said:
Regarding the capacity argument; I went from Gerrards Cross to Birmingham last Tuesday morning. 1 change at Banbury.
1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
I'll warrant that the trains from Gerrards Cross into London at 7:40 on a Monday morning were not so quiet. Same with the trains from Banbury to London.1st leg, GX to Banbury, about 7:40am, the train was only two carriages and was 95% empty. 2nd leg train had about 10 carriages and was maybe a 3rd full. Arrived in Birmingham 9:45am.
robinessex said:
Why can't the railways GPS everything, and do away with 1890 signaling system ?
With respect you really ought o find out something about the subject you're posting about before you post.You won't find an "1890s signalling system" even on a heritage railway. I accept that there are still a few pockets of semaphore signalling left in the country, but mainly well out into the sticks and on lightly-used lines. The only places of any size and traffic intensity that I can think of off-hand with some semaphores left are Worcester and Shrewsbury, but there may well be others.
We have multi-aspect semi-automatic colour light signalling throughout the country; we have in-cab signalling on HS1. To be fair signalling is not of great interest to me so not my strong point, but I dare say there are others would could fill you in on the detail.
The basic reason for signalling is to stop trains crashing into each other, and the distances between signals must be sufficient for trains to stop safely. The trouble is, with lines all over the country running trains of various weights and various speeds, stopping distance and therefore overall capacity will be limited.
Think of it in road terms. If you're driving happily along at 60mph and a hazard suddenly appears, you do an emergency stop. If you do it right in front of a fully-loaded 40 ton wagon doing 56 and its driver hasn't noticed anything wrong before your brake lights go on, that emergency stop was probably your booking of your half a day out with the undertaker.
Furthermore, if you run 140mph trains and 60mph trains along the same piece of track, you can't run as many 60mph trains as you'd like to because the fast ones will get in the way, and vice versa. So what we need is a track that you can run all the 140mph trains on and another track you can run the slower stuff on.
If only were was some way to do it. If only we could build another line so that we can separate the two. No its just not possible because the government wants to spend money on vanity projects instead...
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