High Speed Rail Link

[morphology]

i was meaning that 2 good stations are better than 3. relocate the majority of queen street into a new metropolitan station on high street. fully connect it with central and jobs a good 'un..... well that is if they built the 2nd underground loop to join the dots up!

[Sweet Zombie Jesus]

Ah okay... that is indeed an appealing prospect, especially if we can do away with the massive filing cabinet for students.

[Glasgow 2097]

Hopefully the student accommodation terminating Ingram Street will be pulled down in the next few years. It's desperately poor, and - thankfully - not built to last. It's bewildering that it was ever approved in the first place.

[Sweet Zombie Jesus]

as far as I can determine, they were built as part of some massive cosmic joke. When were they completed?

[Glasgow 2097]

In 2005 or thereabouts. Coincidentally, the buildings also started falling apart in 2005 or thereabouts.

[M_Riaz]

Transport Scotland

High Speed Rail one step closer

1 March 2012

The Scottish Government has welcomed agreement from UK Transport Secretary Justine Greening to engage directly on reaching a timeline for delivery of high speed rail between Scotland and London.

Transport Minister Keith Brown and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment Alex Neil met with Ms Greening and Scottish Secretary Michael Moore at the Scottish Parliament this afternoon.

And Ms Greening agreed that high speed rail company HS2 to engage directly with the Scottish Government on proposals for High Speed Rail ahead of a further meeting between the ministers in the autumn.

Mr Brown said: “I look forward to working with Justine Greening to deliver a plan for High Speed Rail from Scotland to London.

“In particular I welcome the commitment from Justine Greening that the UK Government will engage with the Scottish Government on routes and options for the delivery of High Speed Rail in Scotland with a view to agreeing a timescale for bringing High Speed Rail to Scotland by the end of this Parliament.

“It is essential that we are able to enter discussions with High Speed 2 and it is very helpful that Ms Greening agreed to make that happen.

“The Fast Track Scotland group I formed last year stated unequivocally that the case for this service is strong, but stronger still when Scotland is involved from the beginning and showed the line would result in economic benefits of over £24billion to Scotland.

“Obviously we would like to move faster and proposed the option of work starting in Scotland so we can benefit from better and faster rail connections as soon as possible but today is a step forward and we will continue to keep up the pressure for High Speed Rail in Scotland.

Mr Neil added: “This meeting was extremely productive and allowed us to point out exactly why the rest of the UK needs this line to include Scotland, just as much as we do.

“We have called consistently for a detailed plan of action to be put in place which would see Scotland included and that can now get underway.

“We made clear to Ms Greening and Mr Moore that the only way to see the full potential of the line is to ensure that Scotland is included in planning from the very outset and I am pleased to report that they agreed with this.

“High Speed Rail sits squarely with this Government’s two defining policy objectives: to increase the rate of Scotland’s economic growth, and to develop a low carbon economy which leads the world in its ambition.”

Further talks will be held in the autumn to decide how the scheme should move forward.

[M_Riaz]

http://www.yestohs2.co.uk/hsrmap/

[Kolothos]

Hmm... That figure should be at least 1.8 million, seeing as it's the Glasgow region. And arguably you could say that the region represented should be the Central Belt, in which case it would be roughly 3.5 million, in the same way that the North East of England is represented.

The map is rather misleading in this respect.

[Targer]

Hell, Why not include London in this too.

[Kolothos]

If you click on the link above the map, it shows the whole system, the map on here is the map of the clickable 'Glasgow Region'.

[M_Riaz]

Herald

Sunday 6 May 2012

Scots bid to extend high-speed rail

TRANSPORT Minister Keith Brown has called on newly-elected council leaders in the north of England, and re-elected London Mayor Boris Johnson, to join the campaign to bring high-speed rail to Scotland.

Brown has invited the leaders to join him at a summit on the benefits of a UK-wide high-speed rail network, which could cut as much as two hours off journeys between Glasgow and London. Under current plans the high-speed service would initially only stretch as far as Birmingham, with subsequent extensions to Leeds and Manchester, but Brown hopes to persuade council chiefs to back the Scottish Government's calls to extend the route north of the Border

[Hendycfc]

Originally Posted by M_Riaz

Herald

Sunday 6 May 2012

Scots bid to extend high-speed rail

TRANSPORT Minister Keith Brown has called on newly-elected council leaders in the north of England, and re-elected London Mayor Boris Johnson, to join the campaign to bring high-speed rail to Scotland.

Brown has invited the leaders to join him at a summit on the benefits of a UK-wide high-speed rail network, which could cut as much as two hours off journeys between Glasgow and London. Under current plans the high-speed service would initially only stretch as far as Birmingham, with subsequent extensions to Leeds and Manchester, but Brown hopes to persuade council chiefs to back the Scottish Government's calls to extend the route north of the Border

Boris wouldn't support it.

[M_Riaz]

Herald


Study on high-speed rail link 'to begin this year'

WORK on extending a high-speed rail network to Scotland, offering a train journey of less than three hours to London, will start later this year, UK Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has said.

A study examining the potential of running 250mph trains to the north of England and Scotland will be completed early in 2013, though Scottish Government officials said they were unaware of it.

The announcement follows a torrid week at the Department for Transport, which was forced to abandon the award of a £13 billion contract to run West Coast passenger trains between Scotland and London to First Group last Wednesday following a legal challenge by Virgin Trains.

First, which had £244 million wiped off its share value, is considering whether to sue the UK Government.

A spokesman for the Aberdeen-based company said it was still awaiting a briefing from the DfT on who would take over the West Coast route on December 9, when Virgin's existing contract expires.

The Coalition has endured fierce criticism, including from Conservative backbenchers, over its commitment to building a £33bn route connecting London to Birmingham by 2026 and extending it along separate branch lines to Manchester and Leeds by 2033.

Mr McLoughlin said: "We can't afford not to build it. Our competitors around the world are investing in the best transport, and we must too."

On extending the line north of Manchester and Leeds, he added: "We're launching a study on the way to get fast journeys further north still, with the aim of getting the journey from Scotland to London to under three hours and making sure the North East benefits too, because this will be a scheme for every person in Britain."

A DfT spokesman said the study would look at "capacity and journey times" and involve Government agency Transport Scotland.

However, the agency said officials had no knowledge of the study.

[Ultima]

It will involve Transport Scotland but they haven't even been told about it. Yeah, this will DEFINITELY happen.

[Squirrelking]

I don't doubt it will happen.

Whether the high speed portion will be built in Scotland is another matter.

More likely it's just Phase 2 and the overall journey time reduction up to Manchester or wherever will bring the journey time from Scotland down to the target, it'll probably join the WCML using classic compatible sets and head north from there.

[ForzaD]

We'll be travelling high-speed between Edinburgh - Glasgow sooner than Scotland - London.

[Ultima]

A man or woman will literally have walked on the planet Mars before high speed rail connects London to anywhere in Scotland. Seriously. The fastest thing coming to Scotland will be the bill.

[CalumCookable]

The fact that our dear leaders are still pretending an HS2 extension to Scotland is viable is laughable. Unlike in England, where the development of HS2 is driven by a capacity issue, the demand to justify a line to Scotland does not exist.

The London-Birmingham section of HS2 will carry 18 trains per hour in each direction. Each train will carry up to 1000 people. A total capacity of 18000 seats per hour in each direction.

Current intercity services on the Scottish section of the WCML, including schemes to buy longer trains, are:
1tph London - Glasgow (11 car Class 390 - ~550 seats)
1tph Birmingham - Glasgow/Edinburgh (6 car class 390 - ~300 seats)
1tph Manchester - Glasgow/Edinburgh (4 car class 350 - ~200 seats)

This adds up to 1050 seats per hour in each direction. The mathematically-minded may spot that 1050 is considerably less than 18000.

Ah, but what about modal shift from air to rail? Courtesy of Wikipedia, around 5.5 million people travel between Glasgow/Edinburgh and London/Birmingham by plane every year. Manchester and Prestwick are not significant and I have not included these.

Even though it's unrealistic, let's assume 100% modal shift from air to rail. That's around 15000 passengers per day. Assuming an 18-hour operating day, around 850 passengers per hour, or 425 passengers per hour in each direction. This level of demand wouldn't even half-fill a single high speed train per hour in each direction.

Other points:

• There would be additional induced demand because of the existence of the high speed line. I have no means to estimate this.
• There would be modal shift from road to rail. The Department for Transport state that HS2 will result in 9 million fewer road journeys per year. I think it's safe to assume that the reduction in road journeys as a result of a Scottish extension would be lower to the point of insignificance.
• High speed trains would be unlikely to call at places like Lockerbie, Penrith, Oxenholme, and Lancaster. Passengers using those stations would not transfer to the new line. In addition, it is likely that the construction of a new high-speed line would result in a severe curtailment of train services for those towns, because they are too small and remote to justify a frequent service in their own right once the intercity Glasgow and Edinburgh trains are removed.

In short, an extension of HS2 to Scotland would piss away billions of pounds for the sole benefit of those who consider themselves too important to sit on a train for 3 and a half hours but would deign to do so for 3 hours. Bin it.

[Boards]

This is BS. Get over this we want high speed rail because they're getting it in England bollocks. Spend the billions ( seven or eight isn't it? ) on transport infrastructure in the Central Belt instead

[Squirrelking]

Calum, my point was more that once HS2 Phase 2 gets built (up to Manchester/ Leeds) the total journey time to Scotland by an HS2 "classic compatible" set transferring onto the WCML (realistically and then going either way at Carstairs) would be 3 hours.

I do get your argument though, once it's quicker than air then there's no real benefit of pursuing it further unless a strong economic case could be made due to the law of diminishing returns. However, the case for making it so is a strong one on environmental grounds. I also disagree that freeing capacity on the WCML would result in a degredation of services. If anything it would free capacity up for slower but perhaps more comprehensive long distance services (remember the Glasgow > Leeds service a few years back?) and freight.

At the end of the day though a solid case has to be made, spending money for the sake of it is daft but on an equal footing it's not all about the money. I'd sooner see cheap inter-regional rail become the norm again over air or road travel (car sleepers like mainland Europe, YES PLEASE!), as an island the size of ours it makes no sense going the way we are.