Playing with trains/ HS2 & 3

[jean]

HS2 is worse than useless unless it goes to Liverpool.

[MrGongGong]

HS2 is worse than useless unless it goes to Liverpool.

Of course it can't go there
we can't have the scousers deprived of their persecution complex can we ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

this kind of scheme

http://hsnorthstart.wordpress.com/

It's a very good plan, and not dissimilar to one I sketched in the 1960s when still at school. However, travelling from London to Manchester via Leeds is not a great idea. Perhaps the Great Central Sheffield-Manchester route via the Woodhead Pass would be better. I may have mentioned this before, but there was an interesting high speed route proposed in the early 90s: London-Birmingham-Manchester-Leeds-Newcastle-Edinburgh-Glasgow - a kind of S-shape. This would have meant meant travelling to Leeds via Manchester, rather than the other way round.

[teamsaint]

I wish I could find the other plan that I saw.
Basically , it suggested joining up ( I think) Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, and possibly North Yorks/Newcastle with new High Speed links.
I think the idea was that this would be an engine for growth, and take a little strain off the WCML. I don't think there is much doubt that the WCML is going to hit capacity problems at some point. Whether the solution is a high speed addition, or perhaps a reopening of the Grand Central(?) perhaps for stopping services I wouldn't know.
I agree that going to Manchester via Leeds is not a sensible idea, and is a flaw in the plan I linked to. in any case, I doubt if it would be quicker than the current best speeds on the WCML.
At any rate, the current plan is still London centric and hopelessly flawed.

[Dave2002]

I wish I could find the other plan that I saw.
Basically , it suggested joining up ( I think) Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, and possibly North Yorks/Newcastle with new High Speed links.
I think the idea was that this would be an engine for growth, and take a little strain off the WCML. I don't think there is much doubt that the WCML is going to hit capacity problems at some point. Whether the solution is a high speed addition, or perhaps a reopening of the Grand Central(?) perhaps for stopping services I wouldn't know.
I agree that going to Manchester via Leeds is not a sensible idea, and is a flaw in the plan I linked to. in any case, I doubt if it would be quicker than the current best speeds on the WCML.
At any rate, the current plan is still London centric and hopelessly flawed.

Isn't the Grand Central the one featured in some of Julia Bradbury's walks? As I recall, it was a crazy route for a line, though became very busy. Some of the lines have now been taken up, possibly bridges and viaducts demolished or used for other purposes, and the tunnels would have to be opened up if it were to become active again.

[Anna]

At any rate, the current plan is still London centric and hopelessly flawed.

Exactly, us in the Provinces also like to travel.

[teamsaint]

Isn't the Grand Central the one featured in some of Julia Bradbury's walks? As I recall, it was a crazy route for a line, though became very busy. Some of the lines have now been taken up, possibly bridges and viaducts demolished or used for other purposes, and the tunnels would have to be opened up if it were to become active again.

The plan I am referring to was a different one to the Grand Central plans, which clearly would need a lot of investment.
It basically suggested linking the major northern cities (and Birmingham possibly) before embarking on upgrading routes to London.
Whatever, there are plenty of creative solutions which are far better than the current HS2 plan.

Grand Central would cost £6bn for London to Nottingham, according to the mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2478093/Railway-line-shut-Beeching-save-36bn-Critics-forward-alternative-route-using-track-closed-1960s.html

its clearly only part of the answer.


Edit: Oh, and by the way, if you think that the FoR3 forum is a bit specialist, niche, nerdy, odd, or whatever, try a few Railway forums !!

[Dave2002]

The plan I am referring to was a different one to the Grand Central plans, which clearly would need a lot of investment.
It basically suggested linking the major northern cities (and Birmingham possibly) before embarking on upgrading routes to London.
Whatever, there are plenty of creative solutions which are far better than the current HS2 plan.

Grand Central would cost £6bn for London to Nottingham, according to the mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2478093/Railway-line-shut-Beeching-save-36bn-Critics-forward-alternative-route-using-track-closed-1960s.html

its clearly only part of the answer.


Edit: Oh, and by the way, if you think that the FoR3 forum is a bit specialist, niche, nerdy, odd, or whatever, try a few Railway forums !!

I doubt whether the HS2 planners have ever heard of minimum cost spanning trees or Steiner trees, and politicians just wouldn't understand! That's perhaps more secialised again.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isn't the Grand Central the one featured in some of Julia Bradbury's walks? As I recall, it was a crazy route for a line

Not really. It's only problem was that it duplicated several other routes. Much of it runs close to the proposed HS2 route as far as Rugby, and the branch to Leeds from there isn't too different either.
The closure of the electrified Manchester-Sheffield line was among the craziest of all closures, though the Great Central ran its trains to Manchester Central rather than London Road (now Piccadilly), which was a very much longer route into the city, but had the advantage of allowing trains to continue to Liverpool. But now that diversion is no longer necessary.

So I back the Great Central proposal.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Today's proposal from the Chancellor: a northern high speed line between Manchester and Leeds, preferably by upgrading existing lines.

But this may be a red herring.Network Rail is currently planning to upgrade and electrify this line. Times will be cut and capacity increased. But of course dressing it up as HS3 might just stave off the hostility felt by many in the north that they will not see HS until they are very old indeed.

Not that I blame any one party for HS1/2/3 spin. The Labour opposition during their long wait in the wilderness had proposed a line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Once in government, they never mentioned it. Soon after this proposal first came to light, I wrote an April Fool for a local newspaper, with a line that took an opposite route, crossing the Humber Bridge, reopening the Scarborough-Whitby and Stainmore lines, passing through Middlesborough, Carlisle and Glasgow, eventually ending in Aberdeen.

Then there is the cheaper Great Central Route, which, as I said earlier I support - much cheaper than HS2, as most of the track bed is already there.

[David-G]

Soon after this proposal first came to light, I wrote an April Fool for a local newspaper, with a line that took an opposite route, crossing the Humber Bridge, reopening the Scarborough-Whitby and Stainmore lines, passing through Middlesborough, Carlisle and Glasgow, eventually ending in Aberdeen.

I like it!

[Dave2002]

re the map - msg 144.

I didn't realise that the HS2 proposal was to have a split service from Birmngham going north - one to Manchester, and the other to Leeds via Sheffield. I had assumed that it would roughly follow the red line on the map, and miss out Sheffield.

[ahinton]

I'm still trying to figure out whether HS13 should end in Tromsø or continue on to Kirkenes.

[Barbirollians]

HS 2 proposes returning Sheffield to the situation before the Midland Railway was built with a line skirting the east of the city at Meadowhall rather than sweeping into Sheffield via the old Victoria Station route and then up to Leeds. Another Clegg let down for Sheffield .

That route would link nicely with a reopened Woodhead line to Manchester where trains used to run faster between the two cities in the 1960s than they do now .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

HS 2 proposes returning Sheffield to the situation before the Midland Railway was built with a line skirting the east of the city at Meadowhall rather than sweeping into Sheffield via the old Victoria Station route and then up to Leeds.

That is true. The map isn't entirely accurate.

[/QUOTE]That route would link nicely with a reopened Woodhead line to Manchester where trains used to run faster between the two cities in the 1960s than they do now .[/QUOTE] I don't think there's much difference in timings. When expresses were diverted to the Hope Valley line, the claim by BR was that journey times would be the same - 1 hour. But the Woodhead trains had had an hourly service with a 56 minute journey. It could have been quicker, but between Ardwick and Hadfield it was very slow-going for some reason.
Then the Hazel Grove Chord was built to enable Manchester-Sheffield trains to travel via Stockport rather than Romiley, resulting in a faster timing than via Woodhead.