COMMENT
A)
Alan Robinson explains his intriguing proposals for Britain’s HS2 network. General policy:
1. Be sensible about costs! There don’t seem to be enough engineers thinking about overall strategy.
2. Abandon the idea of going at 400km/h all the way from London to Birmingham and doing it in the straightest possible line. It’s too short a journey for such a high speed to be paramount, and demands horrendously straight alignments. The HS2 business case made no attempt to evaluate alternatives or justify this choice of speed!
3. Abandon the idea of reaching Glasgow via the west coast. The most mountainous ter- rain is on the west side, but the population mostly on the east side. Getting HS2 through the Lune Gorge, Shap, and Beattock would be a horrendously expensive way to bypass 2.5 million people in North-East England, and it’s likely journey times would be no quicker, given the terrain. The journey time to Edin- burgh would be slower.
4. Aim to provide a railway that interconnects as many cities as possible without having to build too much track. Building parallel tracks from north to south, roughly along ECML and WCML lines, splits the country into two and requires more track. A single spine which serves the whole country would be better. The DfT/HS2 ‘Y’ is sub-optimal from this point of view.
B) A proposed phased roll-out:
1. Build from London to Rugby, alongside the M1. Birmingham gets a faster service as soon as Rugby is reached, but as an interim measure existing lines into the city would still be used. The early benefits would be less, but come sooner. The most sensitive parts of the Chilterns would be avoided and the critically congested southern stretch of the WCML re- lieved as soon as possible.
An RTM reader answers our call for fresh thinking on the HS2 debate.
2. Next, build the short hop from Rugby to Leicester, bypassing the poorly aligned and slow southern stretch of the MML, making it available for denser stopping services. Jour- ney times from London to Leicester and be- yond – up the existing MML at first – would be improved very early on in the scheme. The Midlands gets a half-decent main line at last!
3. Build northwards up the M1 corridor, where land alongside the motorway (and MML and GC in places) and planning consent will be easier to obtain, to Nottingham and Sheffield.
4. Re-open Woodhead with faster tunnel approaches and enter Manchester from the east using the Great Central route via Guide Bridge. It has generous clearances and could be upgraded at far less cost than knocking down swathes of built-up area south or south west of Manchester, or building a long tunnel under it all. It could be finished sooner, too.
5. As an interim measure, connect HS2 to the ECML south of Doncaster, via a short spur alongside the M18. This would provide earlier relief on the ECML south of here. Between Doncaster and Darlington the ECML is al- ready fast and less in need of improvement, so it would make more sense to build new line further north first, using this stretch of the ECML as a stop-gap. In the early stages, Doncaster would be an important gateway to Yorkshire, including Leeds via Wakefield.
6. From Darlington, build north via Edin- burgh to Glasgow. This part of the ECML is slow by standards further south. Or perhaps the Scots might want to start building from their end early on, aiming first for Tyneside, then Darlington. Glasgow via Edinburgh would be operationally better than splitting/ joining at Carstairs, and achieve better load factors.
7. Serve Leeds via a spur using the Midland route from the south-east, via Woodlesford. Going through central Leeds could be pro- hibitively expensive.
8. Build the ‘Doncaster Bypass’ at a later stage. After that, Doncaster would be on a loop off HS2, comprising the M18 spur and part of the ECML, but it would be a good fast loop.
9. At some stage, a new spur into Birming- ham would be built, but it doesn’t have to be an early priority.
The weakest link in this vision is Birming- ham-Manchester. But you can’t have every- thing. This plan, or a variant on the general theme, is clearly better for the nation than the DfT/HS2 proposals. None of the heavyweight studies into HS2 – from GG21, NR, HS2 Ltd, or anyone else – has even bothered to look at this possibility, or anything roughly like it. We could make an early start and reap early rewards by getting on with London-Rugby- Leicester while still thinking about the rest of it. That strategy leaves all the best options open, and ought to placate at least some of the objectors. The HS2 proposals do not.
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
opinion@railtechnologymagazine.com
rail technology magazine Apr/May 11 | 35
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