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HS2 General Thread (all phases/discussion)

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#1 ·
Just thought I'd see if anybody thinks about this subject as much as I do and if anyone had ideas as to what they'd like to see under this name.

I think the best place for it's London terminus will be St Pancras but how I wonder.

Can see two options possible:

1) an annex on the west side of the existing station

Advantages being more platforms but high speed trains would be blocked from easy interchange with the Eurostars by the Midland Mianline tracks acting as a kind of barrier.

2) an annex on the east side

Infinitley more difficult but with the advantage being Eurostars and domestic HST's would be in the same area of the station.

As for the line itself, the seemingly obvious place to start is using the North London line for relatively low speed running (say about 160-220km/h) through urban London. Although I'm not sure if that single track connection from HS1 would end up being a problem capacity wise.

There would need to be another line going under the current St Pancras-NLL chord and onto the NLL. Think of it like the soon to be opened St Pancras-HS1 layout with the two running tracks going over/under each other.

A station at Willesden Junciton (see my other thread) would be good I reckon and from here the line continues at classic line speeds to Denham before the new High Speed formation breaks away.

Then to get a bit more basic from here the line should go to Coventry Parkway-Birmingham International-Lichfield Trent Valley-Stoke-Stockport-Manchester Eastlands-Preston-Carlisle.......then up to a triangle junction in the Scottish Central belt with links to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Obviously there would be branches to Liverpool (from Stoke), Leeds (from Manchester) and Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York, Teeside & Newcastle (from Birminghm International).

Sorry to go on but it would be good to hear what others think, it might be an irrelevant discussion knowing this Government but it's always interesting to talk about it.
 
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#19,662 ·
The actual demand for Liverpool is 1.76m pax p/a - so 25.2% full, which is significantly more than 19.7%.

Looking at it another way, if the frequency was doubled the that would be about 14% average occupancy. However one would expect more passengers as Liverpool becomes a more competitive rail head for many passengers and the actual journey time would reduce as wait time for passengers would be shorter (30 min between trains not 60 mins) and with more seats at the peak and at times in the peak that arrive before 9 am. The current poor frequency dampens demand and those people who would otherwise have quicker journeys via Lime Street go elsewhere.

A doubling of base service frequency from 1TPH to 2TPH will of it's own accord lead to a natural increase in ridership - I've seen suggestions it can often add 20% extra numbers by the end of the initial 5-year period. HS2 will deliver this of course.

The current availability of fast trains from Wigan, Warrington and Chester will obviously subtract from the Lime St / Runcorn figures. However they are all currently just an hourly frequency too, so in that regard they have no benefit over Liverpool. I suspect the recent £17 cheap fare initiative has actually attracted some off-peak passengers who previously used Wigan, Warrington and Chester out of choice.
 
#19,663 ·
muwhahahahahaha

You carry on grasping those straws son, Ill just be over here with the smug knowledge that you are in fact wrong and that Liverpool trains are busier than Manchester trains, and there is nothing you can do about it!
You ok hun?

For the record I really don't care one way or the other, I check on this forum as people post useful information, facts, photos etc. but this thread is totally dominated by this childish bickering about bloody Liverpool and Manchester. I have never caught a train from or to Manchester, so have no opinion other than querying some dubious maths used to justify further paranoid nonsense.

If you get worked up about the difference of a few percent then you should get out more.

Also I imagine there are quite a few towns and cities that would quite gladly swap there existing services for one that is only ~25% full.

Finally, see JM Keynes, 'The Wealth of Nations' for reasons why it is good to spend money on building stuff during a recession.
 
#19,665 ·
Cut one of Manchester's unnecessary 3 trains and give it to Liverpool. Then both cities can enjoy a very adequate 2 tph service.
That would be a very, very dumb thing for Virgin Rail Group to do. Which of course fits with you being the one to make the suggestion - and it's always you, isn't it! :eek:hno:

Reality check: Virgin trains would lose a shedload of money by ignoring / annoying it's largest earning market - which it isn't ever going to do, not in a million years. And remember that Manchester provides almost four times as many business travellers (1,836 to 491 a day). These are the people that actually make the train service pay. A single business traveller at 7am can provide as much ticket revenue as ten people travelling on off-peak £17 advance fares.

There's a good argument to bolster Liverpool's current meagre offering but there is no sensible argument to reduce Manchester's frequency back down to 2TPH. By any standards MCR provides at least twice as many bums on Inter-City seats than LCR does.
 
#19,667 ·
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...MVA__final.pdf

Page 100.

Manchester's trains still more loaded than Liverpool's post HS2 completion.

(49% vs 36%/41%)
Are we supposed to take their usage projections as authoritative? And seeing as HS2 will once again suppress demand from Liverpool but stimulate it from Manchester (as seems to be the case with everything the London Government does), it would only be as a result of the flawed design of the scheme in the first place.
 
#19,668 ·
Are we supposed to take their usage projections as authoritative? And seeing as HS2 will once again suppress demand from Liverpool but stimulate it from Manchester (as seems to be the case with everything the London Government does), it would only be as a result of the flawed design of the scheme in the first place.
Well it was a report commissioned by the Government who last time I checked were paying for the construction of HS2.

HTH
 
#19,669 ·
That wasnt the question that was asked though was it.

I have demonstrated, quite cogently I believe, that most of the seats that go to and from Manchester are in fact empty.

I seem to remember the numbers of users I used came from Vulcan who quoted them from the FT.
so the train I have just come back on a which was pretty full was just a figment of my imagination then... good to know I have company even when no one else is about :)
 
#19,670 ·
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...09_Demand_and_appraisal_report_MVA__final.pdf

Page 100.

Manchester's trains still more loaded than Liverpool's post HS2 completion.

(49% vs 36%/41%)
The 36% train to Liverpool according to that doc is the one that stops at Stafford which is no longer happening according to our forum experts
Also, is this the same modelling that has badly underestimated the demand and growth in Liverpool to London rail traffic?
If so, I have to say, I wouldn't exactly treat these figures as gospel...unless they support your preconditioned ideas, of course
 
#19,671 ·
The 36% train to Liverpool according to that doc is the one that stops at Stafford which is no longer happening according to our forum experts
Also, is this the same modelling that has badly underestimated the demand and growth in Liverpool to London rail traffic?
If so, I have to say, I wouldn't exactly treat these figures as gospel...unless they support your preconditioned ideas, of course
The service that originally was to have called at Stafford will now stop at Crewe instead, providing around 25% of the seats from Crewe rather than 100% of the seats from Stafford.

Commendable although the recent rise in passengers from Liverpool is, Virgin have stated that much of it was achieved by slashing the advance standard off-peak fare by almost 23% compared to Manchester's cheapest equivalent fare. The old adage of pile 'em' high and sell 'em' cheap is appropriate. The oversupply of 'goods' being unsold off-peak seats - the number of trains is exactly the same as in 2013 (17 from Liverpool, 18 to).

That tactic will have attracted new passengers, but also passengers from other railheads in the North West that were more expensive, such as Warrington. It shows that some markets are just very price sensitive.

The $64,000 question is whether those numbers would fall down if the fares went back up to £22 minimum, also how many more new passengers would choose to use Manchester's trains if the off-peak price on those dropped to £17? The much higher business usage of Manchester's trains probably explains why those trains are on average more expensive to ride on.
 
#19,672 ·
The service that originally was to have called at Stafford will now stop at Crewe instead, providing around 25% of the seats from Crewe rather than 100% of the seats from Stafford.

Commendable although the recent rise in passengers from Liverpool is, Virgin have stated that much of it was achieved by slashing the advance standard off-peak fare by almost 23% compared to Manchester's cheapest equivalent fare. The old adage of pile 'em' high and sell 'em' cheap is appropriate. The oversupply of 'goods' being unsold off-peak seats - the number of trains is exactly the same as in 2013 (17 from Liverpool, 18 to).

That tactic will have attracted new passengers, but also passengers from other railheads in the North West that were more expensive, such as Warrington. It shows that some markets are just very price sensitive.

The $64,000 question is whether those numbers would fall down if the fares went back up to £22 minimum, also how many more new passengers would choose to use Manchester's trains if the off-peak price on those dropped to £17? The much higher business usage of Manchester's trains probably explains why those trains are on average more expensive to ride on.
Not quite sure what you're trying to say here, Vulcan
If I worked for Virgin Trains then I'd see it as my duty to maximise profits and maximise ticket sales from my various markets...this, isn't exactly news but common business practice
Surely, I'd suggest, any modelling should take into account common business practice as a matter of course.
Again with the price elasticity and price sensitivity...if these factors are not taken into account I'd begin to think the modelling is nothing more than an educated guess at best or more likely a justification to currently held pre-conceptions
Either way, as I said, it's really not something I'd place too much faith in

Unless you know their methodology you're just as much in the dark as I am
 
#19,673 · (Edited)
Not quite sure what you're trying to say here, Vulcan
If I worked for Virgin Trains then I'd see it as my duty to maximise profits and maximise ticket sales from my various markets...this, isn't exactly news but common business practice
Surely, I'd suggest, any modelling should take into account common business practice as a matter of course.
Again with the price elasticity and price sensitivity...if these factors are not taken into account I'd begin to think the modelling is nothing more than an educated guess at best or more likely a justification to currently held pre-conceptions
Either way, as I said, it's really not something I'd place too much faith in

Unless you know their methodology you're just as much in the dark as I am
Virgin/Stagecoach's methodology is well known and formed part of their 2012 franchise bid with an explicit promise to grow the business and fill the recently lengthened Pendolino trains. We all know the history of the First win etc. Part of the remit of the current management contract VRG have with the DFT is to maximise growth and revenue where they think it can be achieved - and due to the lack of peak hours paths and no new trains, on the West Coast franchise any real growth has to come from increasing passenger numbers off-peak when there are lots of empty seats.

They said they have taken the (commercial) decision to lower prices and attract more punters - I assume this has resulted overall in higher farebox revenue for VRG. All well and good. In fact they have taken a leaf out of First's book. This from the Guardian in 2012 before the franchise re-let was cancelled, quoting First's Tim O'Toole..

Longer trains and additional seating will mean 35% more seats on the line in five years, O'Toole said: "We will be making significant improvements including reduced journey times and introducing new direct services. We will improve marketing and deliver a smart ticketing system, refreshed and improved train interiors, station upgrades and even better catering."

He would not confirm the name of the new service that will succeed Virgin although FirstGroup has registered the name Horizon at Companies House.
O'Toole said he believed Virgin had failed to exploit the possibilities to attract customers on to the trains in quieter periods, and promised a 15% reduction in standard anytime fares over the next two years, a pledge that would see the price of a £148 single from London to Manchester drop by around £22.
You mentioned price elasticity and price sensitivity... so why do you think the fares were dropped on the Liverpool route, but not on the Manchester route? It's clearly a deliberate strategy isn't it? So why?
 
#19,674 ·
Lots of rather strange assumptions are appearing here - like that almost all Manchester trains are 11-car. That of course is nonsense. Just like Liverpool, the diagram ratio of each type will be fairly similar to the split of the 56-strong fleet. 35 are 11-car, 21 are 9-car. (Liverpool had 10 long and seven short sets last time that I dug out the diagrams).

Manchester Piccadilly's annual London market passenger numbers alone were 3.25 million in 2014-15, and before that Stockport's numbers were quoted as 800,000. Add in Wilmslow and the total just from those three stations must be well over 4.5 million in 2017 allowing for even modest growth figures. Smaller numbers from the MCR no doubt also use trains from Wigan, Warrington and Macclesfield.

Manchester trains are also responsible for about 35-40% of available seats from Crewe on Virgin trains and 100% of those from Stoke.

I think we can safely discount the 'evidence' supplied by those on here with a bias. If there really were that many empty seats on the Manchester services how come a fiercely commercial organisation like Virgin decided to promote the Scottish and Liverpool routes by slashing the price of advance booking tickets? Yet those kind of very cheap fares are not currently being offered on the Manchester trains....
It doesnt really matter if they are all 11 or all 9 car sets used, even if you HALF the number of seats most of them are still empty when the train leaves or arrives at Manchester.

And it is that what we are talking about. I dont really care how many join the train further down the line we are talking about Manchester and Manchester alone.

Even at half the amount of seats at about 10,000,000 3,250,000 passengers means that more than half the seats are empty.

Most of the comments after are just justifying a service. Crewe and Stoke could for instance be serviced by trains starting at Preston or Liverpool. The problem is they have to be serviced by trains from Manchester otherwise almost all the trains that leave and arrive would be empty from end to end.

The evidence was supplied by you and the FT Vulcan, I just used it to illustrate a point, if there is any bias it is by you ignoring the facts you are presented.
Trying to say its wrong because Virgin offer a discount on one service and not the other is just a load of crap to try and divert attention away from the fact that most of the seats are empty when the trains leave and arrive in Manchester.

The actual number of seats is probably near 15,000,000 not 20,000,000, but from my example that only give 10,000,000 you can clearly see they are mostly empty. The real numbers just make it worse.


A doubling of base service frequency from 1TPH to 2TPH will of it's own accord lead to a natural increase in ridership - I've seen suggestions it can often add 20% extra numbers by the end of the initial 5-year period. HS2 will deliver this of course.

The current availability of fast trains from Wigan, Warrington and Chester will obviously subtract from the Lime St / Runcorn figures. However they are all currently just an hourly frequency too, so in that regard they have no benefit over Liverpool. I suspect the recent £17 cheap fare initiative has actually attracted some off-peak passengers who previously used Wigan, Warrington and Chester out of choice.
The service that originally was to have called at Stafford will now stop at Crewe instead, providing around 25% of the seats from Crewe rather than 100% of the seats from Stafford.

Commendable although the recent rise in passengers from Liverpool is, Virgin have stated that much of it was achieved by slashing the advance standard off-peak fare by almost 23% compared to Manchester's cheapest equivalent fare. The old adage of pile 'em' high and sell 'em' cheap is appropriate. The oversupply of 'goods' being unsold off-peak seats - the number of trains is exactly the same as in 2013 (17 from Liverpool, 18 to).

That tactic will have attracted new passengers, but also passengers from other railheads in the North West that were more expensive, such as Warrington. It shows that some markets are just very price sensitive.

The $64,000 question is whether those numbers would fall down if the fares went back up to £22 minimum, also how many more new passengers would choose to use Manchester's trains if the off-peak price on those dropped to £17? The much higher business usage of Manchester's trains probably explains why those trains are on average more expensive to ride on.
If you look at the actual ticket costs from for instance Warrington BQ or Central which is about £5 at its cheapest or £10 at any useful time and the additional time of just about 1 hour would negate anybody doing what you suggest is the case, as the £5 you save on the express train is spent on the train getting into Lime street but it takes an hour to do it.
The on the day ticket prices from Warrington BQ and Lime street are the same.

Another point of your which is offered up in order to misdirect that just doesnt stand any klnd of scrutiny.

That would be a very, very dumb thing for Virgin Rail Group to do. Which of course fits with you being the one to make the suggestion - and it's always you, isn't it! :eek:hno:

Reality check: Virgin trains would lose a shedload of money by ignoring / annoying it's largest earning market - which it isn't ever going to do, not in a million years. And remember that Manchester provides almost four times as many business travellers (1,836 to 491 a day). These are the people that actually make the train service pay. A single business traveller at 7am can provide as much ticket revenue as ten people travelling on off-peak £17 advance fares.

There's a good argument to bolster Liverpool's current meagre offering but there is no sensible argument to reduce Manchester's frequency back down to 2TPH. By any standards MCR provides at least twice as many bums on Inter-City seats than LCR does.
Havent you been banned in the past for making such personal attacks in the past? You really need to stop letting your emotion control your language, its just a discussion Vulcan!

Virgin wouldnt lose a shedload of money at all.

Manchester does indeed provide twice the number of passengers however it gets triple the amount of services. There is a disparity there that even you cant fail to see when layed down like that, surely?

Going on that basis, remembering Liverpool trains are only 20% full then its possible to service Manchester with 2tph and still have a similar or even higher amount of bums on seats, which means you are getting more income for less. Virgin would be better off cutting it down to 2tph, because the same amount of people would travel an hour only the business overhead would be less.


With the exception of Wimslow and Stockport, because those passengers would wait at those stations for the train rather than get a slower train that would be over taken on its way to Crewe for instance, then all the passengers that use the Manchester trains could and would still be serviced even if that train was to start at Liverpool rather than Manchester. You have to remember the facts, facts that show it is the intermediate stops that are important, Macclesfield passengers go to Crewe on a very good local service and are serviced there, Stoke couldnt see a Liverpool service and still get the service it requires.

The full fare paying business users would still pay fill fares as most of the come from intermediate stations anyway so that argument is mute.

Virgin/Stagecoach's methodology is well known and formed part of their 2012 franchise bid with an explicit promise to grow the business and fill the recently lengthened Pendolino trains. We all know the history of the First win etc. Part of the remit of the current management contract VRG have with the DFT is to maximise growth and revenue where they think it can be achieved - and due to the lack of peak hours paths and no new trains, on the West Coast franchise any real growth has to come from increasing passenger numbers off-peak when there are lots of empty seats.

They said they have taken the (commercial) decision to lower prices and attract more punters - I assume this has resulted overall in higher farebox revenue for VRG. All well and good. In fact they have taken a leaf out of First's book. This from the Guardian in 2012 before the franchise re-let was cancelled, quoting First's Tim O'Toole..



You mentioned price elasticity and price sensitivity... so why do you think the fares were dropped on the Liverpool route, but not on the Manchester route? It's clearly a deliberate strategy isn't it? So why?
I just went onto nationalrail website, a plugged in a random date of 23/11/17 and a time of between 8 and 9 in the morning. (chosen just because it is in about a months time)

A train from Liverpool - Euston leaving at 08:40 costs £43
A train from Manchester- Euston leaving at 08:40 costs £38.50

Shall we try another random date to see if the ticket prices are different or shall we cherry pick a date that we know there is a sale offer on on the Liverpool service and compare it with a none sale offer date on the Manchester service and compare those prices?

Off peak advance tickets are about equal Vulcan... Unless you want to be picky and say that Liverpool tickets are slightly more expensive than those in Manchester, which clearly shows some markets are more sensitive to pricing.
 
#19,675 ·
You ok hun?

For the record I really don't care one way or the other, I check on this forum as people post useful information, facts, photos etc. but this thread is totally dominated by this childish bickering about bloody Liverpool and Manchester. I have never caught a train from or to Manchester, so have no opinion other than querying some dubious maths used to justify further paranoid nonsense.

If you get worked up about the difference of a few percent then you should get out more.

Also I imagine there are quite a few towns and cities that would quite gladly swap there existing services for one that is only ~25% full.

Finally, see JM Keynes, 'The Wealth of Nations' for reasons why it is good to spend money on building stuff during a recession.
Im fine :)

The challenge layed down was to show if Liverpool trains are busier than Manchester ones.
Going on the basis that they both use 11 car trains then yes its easy to show with published figures that Liverpool trains are slightly busier.
It doesnt really matter. But the question was asked and answered.

The real problem is that those figures, and the fact that Mancheser gets 3tph are being used to shape the future services of HS2.
If you use those figures blindly as Vulcan wants you to then Manchester clearly requires the HS2 service proposed, but if you actually look into it (something he doesnt want you to do and dismisses proofs when you do) you will see its at the very least nowhere near as busy as all that, thus the HS2 trains will not be as full as you are lead to believe.

Wimslow and Stockport passengers will be funnelled into Manchester to boost the numbers of passengers there because otherwise a train would leave Manchester with only Manchester users (which Ive shown is a hell of a lot lower than we are lead to believe) and head to Crewe, Birmingham etc, which still wouldnt provide the justification for that service level because as Vulcan has already said it is the intermediate stops that make those 3tph worth while. But those intermediate stops wouldnt be at the new stations with the exception of Crewe, which wont see every train in and out of Manchester, they wont see Stoke users either.

You see why it matters now?

The low passenger numbers are being touted as high passenger numbers in order to get something they want, but isnt actually required.
 
#19,676 ·
so the train I have just come back on a which was pretty full was just a figment of my imagination then... good to know I have company even when no one else is about :)
Exactly the kind of acidulous I was expecting.

You get exactly the same situation in Liverpool on peak time trains.

Its because the train seats are spread evenly over the course of a day but the times people travel is not. I should have thought that was obvious.
 
#19,677 ·
Exactly the kind of acidulous I was expecting.

You get exactly the same situation in Liverpool on peak time trains.

Its because the train seats are spread evenly over the course of a day but the times people travel is not. I should have thought that was obvious.
Have you compared the loading of Liverpool trains with any other city or just Manchester? There are other cities you know!

Your obsession with all things Manchester is very endearing if somewhat troubling.
 
#19,678 ·
Exactly the kind of acidulous I was expecting.

You get exactly the same situation in Liverpool on peak time trains.

Its because the train seats are spread evenly over the course of a day but the times people travel is not. I should have thought that was obvious.
But It was claimed that all trains from Manchester are empty.
I Quote:
Manchester trains are mainly empty, shifting fresh air to London. That was simple to understand.
I was giving my personal experience yesterday evening and the fact I travel at various times during the day and they are very well loaded if not full in my experance- so now you are saying they are NOT empty?
 
#19,679 ·
^^ and the attack on Manchester trains was in response to me not mentioning a specific city or anything.

If Liverpool trains are fuller than Manchester trains, then that doesn't make my point moot that scrapping HS2 would make Intercity trains even more 'for the few, not the many' due to supply not being able to meet demand.

Such is the xenophobia of Mad John that he will happily bring up how much he despises Manchester as a non-sequitur.
 
#19,680 ·
Have you compared the loading of Liverpool trains with any other city or just Manchester? There are other cities you know!

Your obsession with all things Manchester is very endearing if somewhat troubling.
There was no question about loading on other stations, it was about Manchester loading compared to Liverpool, and I clearly showed that Liverpool has a higher loading per train than Manchester does.

Please feel free to apply the same methodology to another station.

 
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