Britain
Britain takes high-speed B
In January the British government unveiled its initial preferred route for the second phase of High Speed 2, which will extend the line north from the Birmingham area to Manchester and Leeds. Keith Barrow looks at the developing proposals for the Y-shaped network.
RITAIN’s railways are facing a dilemma. In the 2011-12 financial year the network carried almost 1.5 billion passengers, nearly double the figure for 1994-95, immediately prior to the privatisation of British Rail. Long distance ridership has grown from 54 million to 125 million over the same period and the upward trend, which has endured through four years of economic stagnation, looks set to continue. With broad political and industry consensus that long-term capacity needs could only be satisfied by the construction of a new line, the government unveiled proposals in March 2010 for a High Speed 2 (HS2) Y-shaped high-speed network with an initial 190km phase linking London and Birmingham (IRJ April 2010 p18), which would be followed by extensions to Manchester and Leeds.
Planning work is now advancing rapidly on the first stage, and although the government has decided to repeat consultation on property compensation following a High Court ruling, a hybrid bill is still on schedule to go before parliament in October. If the bill becomes law, which is expected by 2015, it will grant powers for the construction and operation of Phase 1, allowing civil works to begin in 2017. On January 28 the government unveiled the Department for Transport’s (DfT) preferred route for the second phase of the project, which will involve the construction of two branches totalling 338km extending north to Manchester and Leeds. Although subject to revision, this provides the first glimpse of the government’s vision for how high- speed rail will reach northern England. The western branch will continue the line beyond the northern extremity of Phase 1 near Lichfield, passing east of Stafford and roughly following the route of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) as far as Crewe, where there will be a link to the existing line to allow high-speed services to serve Runcorn and Liverpool. A triangular junction will be built east of Manchester
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which will allow services to run east to Manchester Airport and the city centre, or north to join the West Coast Main Line (WCML) south of Wigan. A station will be constructed near Manchester Airport, which will be located close to the M56 highway, and this will serve as a hub for Cheshire as well as the airport. The line will then enter a 12km tunnel, emerging near Longsight depot and following the existing line towards Manchester Piccadilly. High-speed services will terminate at a new central station, which will be built alongside the existing Piccadilly station. The length of the DfT’s preferred initial alignment for the western branch is 152km, including links to the WCML.
Eastern branch
From a junction east of Sutton Coldfield, the eastern branch will follow the M42/A42 highway, passing beneath East Midlands Airport in a 2km tunnel before crossing the Midland Main Line and the River Trent to reach a new East Midlands Hub station, which will be built on the Toton freight yard site between Nottingham and Derby. This will be linked to the cities by conventional rail services with a journey time of 12 minutes and 15
minutes respectively. An extension of the Nottingham light rail network from its nearby western terminus at Toton Lane (IRJ November p44) is also being discussed, which would give the city’s western suburbs direct rail access to the Hub station.
Even with a change at East Midlands Hub, London - Derby journey times would be cut from 1h 44min to 1h 8min while London - Derby would fall from 1h 31min to 1h 11min. But as with other stations on the route, the journey time benefits will only be optimised if connecting regional services are appropriately configured. Toton is not on the main line between the two cities and as such would require the diversion of regional services (incurring a time penalty for non-HS2 passengers) with a reversal at Toton, or the operation of a dedicated shuttle. North of Toton the line will closely follow the M1 highway into South Yorkshire, where a new station at Meadowhall will serve the Sheffield area. Meadowhall is already an interchange between mainline services and the Sheffield light rail network, with services to a broad range of destinations across South Yorkshire and further afield. The planned Sheffield - Rotherham tram train could also be
Comparative journey times HS2 and car Origin Destination
Journey time (h:min) HS2
Eastern leg London East Midlands Hub (Toton)
0:51
Nottingham 1:08 Derby 1:11 Sheffield 1:19 Sheffield Meadowhall
1:09
Leeds 1:22 York 1:23 Newcastle 2:18
Western leg London Crewe Manchester Airport
0:58 0:59
Manchester 1:08 Preston 1:24 Liverpool 1:36 Glasgow 3:38 Edinburgh 3:38
Source: DfT IRJ April 2013
3:14 3:37 3:50 4:10 3:54 6:48 7:23
Car 2:28
2:38 2:30 3:10 3:04 3:36 3:56 5:06
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