TRANSPORT | High Speed Rail

[Irish Blood English Heart]

The all points service takes almost an hour longer than the fast, 3 hours to travel the 160 miles between the two won't be great for the city. Ideally some Thameslink services would be extended to Leicester and passing points loops reinstated to allow the intercities to still run fast, but I suspect your right, which will in effect mean a net loss to the East Midlands cities and Sheffield as their intercity services are made much slower but HS2 is too far away to be useful.

[NCT]

Originally Posted by sotonsi

I think HS1 will have had a more negative effect on the MML (due to giving it only a small number of terminating platforms at St Pancras for intercity services). Thameslink's sheer number of services to Bedford, restricting the number of paths for services north of there also is a major factor.

Wellingborough, Market Harborough, Corby and Kettering are growing and the existing services aren't adequate. There's no room for extra trains at the London end, so there's going to be extra stops.

I can NOT see why HS2 would mean any removal of services to Sheffield or Nottingham on the MML (can someone describe a non-mad cap scenario where such services would be removed) - it might mean that they can justify adding stops to the faster services, though they almost certainly will have already done so by then.

At the moment there are 5tph on the MML, 2 to Sheffield, 2 to Nottingham and 1 to Corby, of which the Corby train and one of the Nottingham trains are stoppers. To add a stopper the only way is probably to make one of the Sheffield train a slow one. I wonder if MML upgrade will make it possible for a fast train to overtake a slow train south of Leicester. It'd be nice if passengers could get on a slow train at Sheffield and change onto a fast train from Nottingham at EM Parkway or Leicester.

[Irish Blood English Heart]

Originally Posted by NCT

At the moment there are 5tph on the MML, 2 to Sheffield, 2 to Nottingham and 1 to Corby, of which the Corby train and one of the Nottingham trains are stoppers. To add a stopper the only way is probably to make one of the Sheffield train a slow one. I wonder if MML upgrade will make it possible for a fast train to overtake a slow train south of Leicester. It'd be nice if passengers could get on a slow train at Sheffield and change onto a fast train from Nottingham at EM Parkway or Leicester.

Though that would still involve a change and so would be as harmful for Sheffield as expecting people to cart out to Meadowhall and change.

One of those 2 Sheffield services is a fast that takes just over 2 hours while the other is a slow which is basically an extended Derby service and takes 30 minutes longer.

[sotonsi]

Originally Posted by Irish Blood English Heart

The all points service takes almost an hour longer than the fast, 3 hours to travel the 160 miles between the two won't be great for the city. Ideally some Thameslink services would be extended to Leicester and passing points loops reinstated to allow the intercities to still run fast, but I suspect your right, which will in effect mean a net loss to the East Midlands cities and Sheffield as their intercity services are made much slower but HS2 is too far away to be useful.

But as I said, this is highly likely to occur before HS2.

Then again, electrification (allowing Thameslink to extend to Corby, Kettering, Leicester perhaps) would sort out some of the problems.

Also, an hour more for stopping services? Sheffield has three extra stops (Long Eaton, EMP, Loughborough) and Nottingham has four more (Beeston, Loughborough but not EMP, Kettering, Wellinborough, Bedford, Luton AP). 15 minutes a stop doesn't sound right - at least twice as big as it would be.

Certainly Sheffield fast services would stop at EMP post-HS2, if that's where the HS2 station is. The stops south of Leicester would get an extra 1/2 tph out of the 2/3 tph that skip them - so 1 or 2 more stops on each service - unless Thameslink extends its Bedford services north post-electrification. HS2 would justify such a move in slowing down the MML intercity services, however, it is highly likely that will have already happened (unless Thameslink extends north).

As I said - Thameslink taking up lots of fast line paths and HS1 giving the MML little London terminus capacity for intercity service will have a bigger negative effect on Intercity services to Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield city centres than HS2 will. And worst-case, we are not looking at the relegation to being a Bolton or Huddersfield (Lincoln now gets through services, though only once every 2 hours. IIRC, Huddersfield might, via an open access operator) where you have to change to go to London.

[Irish Blood English Heart]

Sorry the standard stopping service (which still doesn't really have that many stops) takes 30 minutes longer from Sheffield than the fast (which often only calls at Chesterfield & EMP). The late night all points stopper takes a good hour longer though (calling at every town along the route).

What you're talking about happening then is the opposite of what happened on the WCML (where intermediate stations lost out to speed up journey times to Manchester and Scotland)? Though this has been mitigated somewhat by the additional lines during the Trent Valley Improvements and the introduction of London Midland services over this route.

Ideally something similar would happen on the MML with an extended Thameslink service operating at principle points to Leicester and Corby and leaving fast paths (and platforms at St. Pancras) for Sheffield and Nottingham services (calling at nowhere south of Leicester). The line from Leicester to Bedford is only dual though isn't it so it'll be difficult. Wellingborough and Kettering have space for passing loops in the platforms though.

There's a debate in parliament tomorrow about MML electrification according to this:

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2012/...car-parks.html

So we should get an indication if the govt is willing to invest any money in this line.

It's still very easy to see a situation post 2032 where Sheffield and Nottingham have a worse connection to the capital than they do today though.

It's the equivilent of HS2 bypassing Manchester on it's way upto Scotland and passengers either having to board a much slowed down stopper service or a shuttle to South Manchester Parkway to connect with HS2. Could you imagine the uproar in Manchester if that was the case?

[NCT]

Originally Posted by Irish Blood English Heart

Though that would still involve a change and so would be as harmful for Sheffield as expecting people to cart out to Meadowhall and change.

I dunno, at least this routing is more direct and might be more psychologically more acceptable than heading north to Meadowhall, and if the connection is good the total journey time to London might still be less than changing at Meadowhall.

[Irish Blood English Heart]

Originally Posted by NCT

I dunno, at least this routing is more direct and might be more psychologically more acceptable than heading north to Meadowhall, and if the connection is good the total journey time to London might still be less than changing at Meadowhall.

I can kinda see your point, it might be an easier interchange too than Meadowhall where it's difficult to see how they could build a very effective interchange. I think it's crucial that Sheffield maintains a direct intercity service to the capital though, even if it's just 1tph either via a spur from HS2 or a traditional intercity service on the MML.

Edit:

With capacity being freed up from the ECML by HS2 I wonder if some clever open access operator would jump in and offer a direct service from Sheffield on the ECML should it lose it's fast direct services to London?

[CHAPS2034]

HS1 giving the MML little London terminus capacity for intercity service

Does anyone know if MML had a reduced service into St P over Easter? The reason I ask is that the MML platforms were also used for Thameslink terminators whilst work goes on at Blackfriars and the cross city route was blockaded.

I think this has been going on for some time at every weekend. If MML runs a normal service then, aren't these Thameslink trains using spare capacity?

Cheers
CW

[Irish Blood English Heart]

Not sure but it would be interesting to find out, I think there must be some latent capacity built in at St. Pancras with 5 tph operating out of 4 platforms, whenever I've used the station there is often a couple of vacant platforms at least. Though I agree it was stupid that the built the station with as many platforms for the South Eastern services as for the whole of the MML!

[NCT]

Originally Posted by Irish Blood English Heart

I can kinda see your point, it might be an easier interchange too than Meadowhall where it's difficult to see how they could build a very effective interchange. I think it's crucial that Sheffield maintains a direct intercity service to the capital though, even if it's just 1tph either via a spur from HS2 or a traditional intercity service on the MML.

What I envisage for the MML is 2 tph to Sheffield and 2 tph to Nottingham, 1 fast and 1 slow on each branch, and east slow is overtaken by the fast on the other branch south of Leicester with good connection at EMP. An illustrative service pattern for an improved MML might look like this (timings probably unrealistic but you get the principle):

Train 1 - Sheffield (10) - Chesterfield - Derby - L. Eaton - EMP (50) - Leicester (05) - fast* to London (00) (1 hour 50 mins)

Train 2 - Sheffield (30) - Chesterfield - Derby - L. Eaton - EMP (10) - Loughborough - Leicester (30) - all stops* to London (50) (2 hours 20 minutes)

Train 3 - Nottingham (20) - Beeston - EMP (40) - Loughborough - Leicester (00) - all stops* to London (20) (2 hours)

Train 4 - Nottingham (00) - Beeston - EMP (20) - Leicester (35) - fast* to Nottingham (30) (1 hour 30 minutes)

* All trains will probably stop at one of Luton and LAP.

Sheffield to London then has the option of train 1 direct (1h50) or train 2-4 changing at EMP (2 hours). There might be another 1 or 2 tph at EMP on HS2.

[CHAPS2034]

Not sure but it would be interesting to find out, I think there must be some latent capacity built in at St. Pancras with 5 tph operating out of 4 platforms, whenever I've used the station there is often a couple of vacant platforms at least. Though I agree it was stupid that the built the station with as many platforms for the South Eastern services as for the whole of the MML!

There are only 3 platforms for the SE High speed services (11-13)

CW

[LNGCats]

Bringing the discission away from the Metrolink, thread to where it should be.

Something occurred to me yesterday.

Trafford have given their thumbs up to HS2, we have assumed that this is due to Davenport Green.

Pomona is also in Trafford.................

[thecityofgold]

Pomona is the dream option for HS2. It would lead to a rapid infilling of the space between the Quays and the City making the City feel much bigger.

[LNGCats]

If Pomona was brought into action I'd like to see the second cage bridge brought into action to provide the resliency and platform capacity at Cornbrook to deal with what would be a huge increase in passenger numbers at the site.

[John07]

Originally Posted by thecityofgold

Pomona is the dream option for HS2. It would lead to a rapid infilling of the space between the Quays and the City making the City feel much bigger.

Dream option for who?

It sounds like the nightmare option for travellers.

The HS2 terminus will be sited where people actually might want to travel to. That will be near to the City Centre and probably adjacent to one of the three main national rail stations.

There are probably operation problems with any site near Victoria. I can't see where a site near Oxford Road can be found, so it comes down to Piccadilly.

[LNGCats]

The suggestion is it is a good location for HS2 who may be working to different criteria than the traveller that you have in mind.

Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world I would not see Pomona / Cornbrook as the ideal location, however, it is a huge site, easy to build on and ripe for development.

It may be that sticking the station there could lead to more rapid immediate economic growth due to the blank canvas around it.

It also would have very good Metrolink connections at Cornbrook and possible heavy rail connections around the White City area somewhere.

I would certainly drag the city centre over across Castglefield, much like happened in Lyon and Lille when their stations were not right in the middle of town.

For me, Pomona is an alright alternative to Piccadilly or Victoria.

[pholling]

Originally Posted by LNGCats

The suggestion is it is a good location for HS2 who may be working to different criteria than the traveller that you have in mind.

Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world I would not see Pomona / Cornbrook as the ideal location, however, it is a huge site, easy to build on and ripe for development.

It may be that sticking the station there could lead to more rapid immediate economic growth due to the blank canvas around it.

It also would have very good Metrolink connections at Cornbrook and possible heavy rail connections around the White City area somewhere.

I would certainly drag the city centre over across Castglefield, much like happened in Lyon and Lille when their stations were not right in the middle of town.

For me, Pomona is an alright alternative to Piccadilly or Victoria.

The HS2 station must have direct heavy rail links in addition to metrolink. A rail-metrolink-rail connection adds nearly 0.5 hours to the commuters brain. and that is provided there is no waiting at either end. The advantages of either a Exchange or Piccadilly location is that they are on the orbital rail with direct connections to basically the whole of Manchester's network in addition to connections to Metrolink. to do Pomona, you need to put a heavy rail stop in at Cornbrook and create a covered link to the station. A station with only a Metrolink access is almost is dumb as one with only bus access.


Also, Pomona is not really within walking distance of much in the CBD. Manchester's CBD is small enough that any immediately adjacent station (Piccadilly, Victoria, Exchange, Central) were all with in walking distance of most of the district.

[John07]

Originally Posted by LNGCats

The suggestion is it is a good location for HS2 who may be working to different criteria than the traveller that you have in mind.

Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world I would not see Pomona / Cornbrook as the ideal location, however, it is a huge site, easy to build on and ripe for development.

It may be that sticking the station there could lead to more rapid immediate economic growth due to the blank canvas around it.

It also would have very good Metrolink connections at Cornbrook and possible heavy rail connections around the White City area somewhere.

I would certainly drag the city centre over across Castglefield, much like happened in Lyon and Lille when their stations were not right in the middle of town.

For me, Pomona is an alright alternative to Piccadilly or Victoria.

First Cornbrook was suggested, now Pomona. By next week the station will be at Davenport Green. That would do away with the Manchester spur completely! The provisional name for the new station is Manchester, not Old Trafford.

HS2 is not about remodeling the City Centre, it is about filling six trains an hour: three from Euston, one from Heathrow and two from Curzon Street. Each train would carry either 550 or 1100 passengers.

You will not achieve that with a station 3 Km from the City Centre.

[hulmeman2]

Also, how on earth is the line going to get from Davenport Green to Pomona?

[Altfish]

Is Pamona any further from the city centre than Euston or St Pancras are in London?
Is it any further/longer by tram than Piccadilly?