HS2

[corneliuslundie]

To say nothing of replacing the Chinese or Indian produced rails now we have no steel industry.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

33 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

To say nothing of replacing the Chinese or Indian produced rails now we have no steel industry.

 

I thought they were Spanish?

 

But looking it up, I find That's just one supplier of cast crossings, almost all rail used in the UK being rolled at Scunthorpe.

Edited Saturday at 07:29 by Compound2632

[david.hill64]

1 hour ago, DY444 said:

Whilst I have no expertise at all on the maintenance costs of slab track vs ballasted track and so defer to those who say the ongoing cost of the latter will be higher, what about the effects on the service of that maintenance? 

 

Modern track plant can, and does, maintain or renew hundreds of yards of ballasted track in a shift with the track available for traffic immediately afterwards, so whilst you might need a whole host of shifts to keep the track up to snuff the service can still run.  By contrast renewing a length of slab track is going to require an extended closure measured in days, and, as the infrastructure ages and further lengths need replacing, more and more extended closures.  The signalling presumably will support full bi-di running but even if H&S allows SLW past a work site, operating the full service isn't going to be feasible.   Plus nobody has seen fit to provide a connection to the WCML at Euston so platform capacity there is going to prevent any attempt at providing a temporarily boosted alternative service on the old route. 

 

Seems to me that a few years hence there is a good chance HS2 will be closed as often as it's open whilst hundreds of track miles of concrete slab is replaced.  I still think ballasted track would have been the better option in the round and that they'll eventually regret not using it.

The concrete slabs last nearly as long as the civil structures: typical design life is at least 60 years. Rail realignment is only required in case of structural settlement and the fasteners are designed to allow that. No need for routine tamping to maintain alignment. The rails need to be replaced when they wear out but that is no different to ballasted track. Similarly routine grinding for RCF prevention will be no different. Because you don't need as much routine maintenance, capacity is increased.

[RJS1977]

On 13/09/2024 at 04:16, david.hill64 said:

And indeed the last bunch of clowns actively promoted the savings from HS2 investment (capital spend) to be used for pothole repairs (revenue account). Politically of course that is a vote winner. Most people have no idea of the benefits that they will see by having HS2, whereas not having to pay for damages to your car caused by the appalling state of the roads is readily understood.

Of course in 10 years' time, the potholes will be back and we still won't have HS2...

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

Of course in 10 years' time, the potholes will be back and we still won't have HS2...

 

In ten years' time car ownership and use will have collapsed as the electricity grid is unable to support mass electric car charging. So only cyclists will be complaining about the potholes.

Edited Saturday at 08:13 by Compound2632

[APOLLO]

As discussed many posts earlier.

 

Castlefield corridor is a problem which will take many years and many £millions to address. No spare capacity exists (except for the multi million £ Castlefield curve white elephant round to Man Victoria, currently one train per hour (Airport to Redcar).

 

The Manchester / Bolton / Preston lines are very busy, local stopping trains also so no use for fast long distance expresses. Also the newly (soon) electrified route via Wigan NW joins via one platform at Wigan on the wrong side, again no use for fast trains.

 

Real bottleneck going north (Wigan NW to Euxton), much discussed on here a while ago.

 

Liverpool to Man Airport via Bank Quay Low Level, Won't happen, the area floods, its very curvy hemmed in by existing housing (much new) and the river. Many, many £millions that nobody has (Pensioners maybe ?).

 

High Legh to Man Airport etc fine, but from there to and through Warrington and to provide a suitable fast connection to the WCML northbound (south of Bank Quay High Level) will not be not easy or cheap. This line will also need to cross the Manchester Ship canal (therefore high up) cross the Mersey then dive down to meet the Bank Quay Low Level lines at some point in this very built up area. I know this area well having worked in the area for over 20 years (Gas distribution), it ain't easy.

 

Lets see some plans, detailed ones.

 

Brit15

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

Depends on the tunnelling requirement.

Are there any on this section?

[david.hill64]

13 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Are there any on this section?

No idea.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Are there any on this section?

 

1 hour ago, david.hill64 said:

No idea.

I’d have to go away and search it, but my recollection is that there were no tunnels on Phase 2a and the number of bridges and viaducts required was fewer than on the Phase 1 open stretches between the Chilterns to Warwickshire.

Most of Phase 2a is/was over open countryside, with the only significant obstacle being the M6, near Stone in Staffs, where a bridge over the motorway was included.

 

The original plans did call for a tunnel under the Crewe station and junction area, to allow HS2 trains to bypass the station on their way to Manchester and the proposed Golborne link.

Trains for Liverpool would have left HS2 prior to Crewe, joining the WCML to the south of the station.

 

These new proposals also mention the possibility of a bypass tunnel under Crewe.

 

 

Edited Saturday at 11:09 by Ron Ron Ron

[Michael Edge]

No need for tunnels here unless they want more stupidly unnecessary "green" ones.

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

stupidly unnecessary "green" ones.

 

But are they?

[lmsforever]

Do not expect any major projects for the next five years  all you can expect is misery look how quickly eight rail projects were cancelled you wonder what is going to happen next.

[Michael Edge]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But are they?

They don't put motorways in them and they make far more noise continuously than an electric railway ever will.

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

They don't put motorways in them and they make far more noise continuously than an electric railway ever will.

 

Perhaps they should, then...

[Northmoor]

8 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

I’d have to go away and search it, but my recollection is that there were no tunnels on Phase 2a and the number of bridges and viaducts required was fewer than on the Phase 1 open stretches between the Chilterns to Warwickshire.

Most of Phase 2a is/was over open countryside, with the only significant obstacle being the M6, near Stone in Staffs, where a bridge over the motorway was included.

 

The original plans did call for a tunnel under the Crewe station and junction area, to allow HS2 trains to bypass the station on their way to Manchester and the proposed Golborne link.

Trains for Liverpool would have left HS2 prior to Crewe, joining the WCML to the south of the station.

 

These new proposals also mention the possibility of a bypass tunnel under Crewe.

Why would they want trains to bypass Crewe, which offers connection to so many destinations?

[woodenhead]

23 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Why would they want trains to bypass Crewe, which offers connection to so many destinations?

For the same reason not all trains stop at Crewe today.

[jamie92208]

10 hours ago, melmerby said:

Are there any on this section?

 

10 hours ago, david.hill64 said:

No idea.

As far as I know, no tunnels on phase 2a.  However the link into Manchester needed tunnels under the airport then nearly to Piccadilly. 

 

Jamie

[DenysW]

13 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Why would they want trains to bypass Crewe, which offers connection to so many destinations?

 

13 hours ago, woodenhead said:

For the same reason not all trains stop at Crewe today.

In a short-distances country like England the only way to cut journey times appreciably* (one stated objective of HS2) is not to stop at intermediate destinations. If you aren't going to have Birmingham as a through-line (as part of this logic), then you don't stop at Crewe. It's one step more extreme in Birmingham: a new station is being provided an inconvenient distance from New St to make London->Curzon St not a sane way to get faster to the rest of England.

 

* Phrased differently: to remove the high-speed London->Birmingham and London->Manchester passengers from services on the WCML, de-bottlenecking it.

[phil-b259]

On 14/09/2024 at 07:54, corneliuslundie said:

To say nothing of replacing the Chinese or Indian produced rails now we have no steel industry.

Jonathan

Daily Mail esque **** stiring - the vast a majority of rail used in the U.K. is made in the U.K. and the practice will continue well into the future.

[martin_wynne]

34 minutes ago, DenysW said:

In a short-distances country like England the only way to cut journey times

 

Is it important to cut journey times?

 

A good way to cut them is not to go at all. You could ring Birmingham on the phone, or have a Zoom meeting with Birmingham, or create a virtual reality Birmingham at Old Oak Common.

 

If you need to be in Birmingham for work, to do some bricklaying perhaps, you could have a robot do the bricklaying and control it from Old Oak Common.

 

No-one on a train to Birmingham will need to get there in any great hurry by the time this century is out. You could have a nice ride to Birmingham and look out of the windows. So that rules out HS2. A train-load of bricks and a coach full of robots would happily travel overnight.

 

 

 

 

[phil-b259]

Just now, martin_wynne said:

 

Is it important to cut journey times?

 

A good way to cut them is not to go at all. You could ring Birmingham on the phone, or have a Zoom meeting with Birmingham, or create a virtual reality Birmingham at Old Oak Common.

 

If you need to be in Birmingham for work, to do some bricklaying perhaps, you could have a robot do the bricklaying and control it from Old Oak Common.

 

No-one on a train to Birmingham will need to get there in any great hurry by the time this century is out. You could have a nice ride to Birmingham and look out of the windows. So that rules out HS2. A train-load of bricks and a coach full of robots would happily travel overnight.

 

 

 

 

First it was the telephone, then it was the arrival of video conferencing and the internet while these days it’s AI….

 

In all cases ‘experts’ have told us these inventions will transform business and negative any need to travel but in each case these experts have been proved wrong and people still traveled for business in spite of technological innovations.

 

It is also the case that in some cases the awarding of contracts has been down to which companies can be bothered to send a representative to discuss things in person - the logic being that a company which goes to the trouble to attend personally is far more ‘invested’ in the proposal than one who does it over a teams meeting!

 

Remember all those 1980s predictions about flying cars, all meals in pill form, etc - the notion that business travel will fall away in future is just as nonsensical!

 

 

[martin_wynne]

8 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Remember all those 1980s predictions about flying cars, all meals in pill form, etc - the notion that business travel will fall away in future is just as nonsensical!

 

I didn't say it would fall away. I said does it need to be quick? The internet can do the quick, urgent, can't wait stuff.

 

while these days it’s AI

 

Anything which we used to call a computer program is now called AI. If I wrote a program to ping after 3 minutes boiling an egg, it would be acclaimed as a brilliant achievement of AI. Probably by someone who just dashed here by train to say so.

 

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

Sorry, Phil, but with Scunthorpe and Port Talbot closing we will be the only country in the G10 without facilities for making virgin steel. What has never been made clear in all the debate about coal and steel is that recycled steel is not suitable for things like railway rails, cars etc. There is just one very experimental steel plant somewhere in Scandinavia which is trying to make virgin steel using the electrical process but when I last heard it had not yet produced any.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cydr07nz2z4o

Jonathan

[62613]

37 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

 

Is it important to cut journey times?

 

A good way to cut them is not to go at all. You could ring Birmingham on the phone, or have a Zoom meeting with Birmingham, or create a virtual reality Birmingham at Old Oak Common.

 

If you need to be in Birmingham for work, to do some bricklaying perhaps, you could have a robot do the bricklaying and control it from Old Oak Common.

 

No-one on a train to Birmingham will need to get there in any great hurry by the time this century is out. You could have a nice ride to Birmingham and look out of the windows. So that rules out HS2. A train-load of bricks and a coach full of robots would happily travel overnight.

 

 

 

 

Most long - distance rail journeys are for leisure purposes, as most trains on the WCML will show. On London - Manchester, they are full after leaving Stoke/Crewe/Birmingham. At any time of day. Before Covid, the NWR stoppers were full after Rugeley and standing after Nuneaton

[DenysW]

4 hours ago, 62613 said:

Most long - distance rail journeys are for leisure purposes, as most trains on the WCML will show.

 

5 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

in some cases the awarding of contracts has been down to which companies can be bothered to send a representative to discuss things in person

And that's the need for speed for business.  It makes it possible to do things in a sane single-day-trip that wouldn't be possible by car (too much risk of delays) or air (too few flights).

 

I rarely had to go to contract-type meetings long distance (too much a minion); much more often it was part of checking out whether a new-to-us technology was actually doing what the salesman/woman said in real-life service. UK Trips included Avoch, Market Harborough, Selby, Ashford (Kent), Slough, Gillingham, Plymouth, Newcastle-on-Clun, and Windermere. A day trip removed the cost of hotels and eating-out at them. Cross-industry forums were also much better done face-to-face.