HS2
See for yourself
The following presentations from the day are available to watch online at
tv.theiet.org on the Transport channel:
• HS2 – Revolutionising the railways: Building a connected Britain (Tim Smart, head of engineering and operations at HS2)
• Setting the GM transport scene (Dr Jon Lamonte, Transport for Greater Manchester chief executive)
• HS2: Benefitting the region (panel session)
• HS2 Passenger Experience (David Watts, Parsons Brinckerhoff CCD Design and Ergonomics Ltd and Thomas Williamson, HS2 Ltd traction and rolling stock engineer)
• HS2 and the North West (Ian Jordan, HS2 phase two director)
• Better Connections – Options for the Integration of High Speed Rail (Clive Woods, Network Rail)
• Connectivity – Local Connections (Martin Lax, Metroling strategic development manager, TfGM & PB)
• Connectivity (panel session)
• International experience: the Tours-Bourdeaux High Speed Rail Concession 2011-61 (Albéric du Chéné, project manager, Vinci Construction Grand Projects)
• The Preferred Route? Finding the right route and stations for HS2 in the North West (Amanda White, senior route engineer, North West)
• A system engineering approach to delivering a railway (Andrew Shepherd, technical director, PB)
• Designing an efficient system for powering high speed train operation (Tom Palfreyman, engineering manager – railway electrification and traction power, with presentation input from Mark Howard, head of power, traction and M&E engineering at HS2 Ltd)
“It’s not just something that HS2 can do on its own,” he said. “Infrastructure is…an enabler and a supporter – what’s important is working within strong partnerships with strong local leadership, which we know we certainly have here in Greater Manchester.”
coming closer to a residential area, and dealing with the many scattered villages and hamlets in Staffordshire, especially where tunnelling cannot be justified. Another compromise has been the need to cut speeds near Manchester because of the complex route constraints. An early decision was whether to track closer to the West Coast Main Line corridor and Crewe, or the M6 corridor and Stoke. Crewe was chosen, especially because of the way it opens up onward travel to Liverpool, Warrington, Preston and other north-west towns – which are important to the overall business case.
Economic case suffers without local leadership
HS2’s phase 2 director Ian Jordan outlined the jobs and economic benefits for Manchester, Leeds and other areas, but he added: “All the evidence from abroad and from the Continent is that when you’ve got strong, strategic local and regional leadership, you can drive success. You see that in places like Lyon and Lille, but equally, there are parts of the TGV network where the local economy has been all but unaffected. That’s been pretty closely aligned to the degree, strength and commitment of local leadership.”
He discussed the direct and indirect boost to jobs and growth in the north west and Yorkshire, adding: “It leads potentially to a 1.7% increase annually in the economic output of Greater Manchester over the time the railway is open. That’s £1.3bn a year, the size of the economy of somewhere like Cambridge – it is actually huge.”
He also discussed the wider strategic aims, which focus on capacity in the south but connectivity in the north, and addressed the ‘Crewe question’ – the idea for a hub station at Crewe as proposed by Sir David Higgins, which followed on from work by Network Rail and Cheshire East Council. That “sounds a very attractive proposition”, he said, but needs work to develop it.
The Manchester connection
TfGM’s strategy director Dave Newton and Martin Lax of the Metrolink directorate addressed the local issues, including connectivity at the new airport station and at Piccadilly itself. The two stations will be linked by a 7.5-mile tunnel under south Manchester.
There are plans for a ‘10-figure’ regeneration scheme around Piccadilly station and the neighbouring high-speed terminus.
Lax said that “if possible” Manchester wants the work at Piccadilly to be done “in line with HS2 phase 1 work”. He said the vision for the new stations is inspired by King’s Cross/ St Pancras and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, both of which handle high speed and local trains, metro services, buses, taxis and cars. The stations are of very high architectural quality too, he said, matching Manchester’s vision.
Discussing the wish to accelerate the scheme, Lax said: “Particularly around [Piccadilly], we’re keen to avoid blight. We want to get on with the redevelopment – as soon as the station is built, and the boulevards are aligned, we can start developing the
sites and regenerating that area.
“We want to ‘build once’. There are a number of elements in Piccadilly – Metrolink, the regeneration framework, bus facilities, HS2,
Network Rail improvements. We
don’t want 20 or 30 years of one thing being done, then another, then another. We want a coherent plan that delivers a scheme that has the capacity for the next 40 or 50 years.”
‘Integrated connectivity’
Clive Woods, Network Rail’s senior programme manager responsible for HS2 phase 2, discussed the options for integration of the classic network and HS2, outlining three approaches: ‘do minimum’, effectively keeping other services as they are now; ‘incremental’,
the historical approach to
handling new infrastructure’; or ‘integrated connectivity’, also known as the hub-and- spoke approach, which could radically cut journey times and improve service frequency on many routes, but the downside is fewer direct trains serving non-hub locations. These options were explained in detail in Network Rail’s July 2013 document ‘Better Connections’.
Achieving integrated connectivity would depend on truly seamless interchanges, Woods told RTM in the Q&A session, with excellent passenger environments, personalised digital information, good communications.
and
Albéric du Chéné, from the Tours-Bourdeaux high speed rail project in France, reminded the audience that many of the UK issues are actually international.
His presentation, and all the others, are available online – see the box out for information.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.theiet.org/events/2014/192654.cfm
rail technology magazine Apr/May 14 | 59
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