Campaign grows to switch the building of HS2 station to Sheffield city

[Annie Bynnol 612]

If you look at your own link it shows all the proposed stations, many of which are not in Hertfordshire or Surrey. The line will service a lot of very Labour areas including Dalston, Seven Sisters, Wood Green, Tooting and Clapham as well as Lib-Dem Kingston. In any case it serves very few of the 22 constituencies you've quoted. It barely touches Hertfordshire.

 

The line won't just be used by people travelling from Surrey or Hertfordshire into London. It'll be used by people getting on at one stop in London and getting off at another stop in London. It will also have intersections with Crossrail One and tube lines. At a guess I'd say that even tourists might use it. To say that Tory commuters in the leafy Home Counties will benefit most is ridiculous.

 

London's public transport infrastructure needs upgrades anyway. The problem is that the government is funding London but not some of the provinces.

 

London is a very big conurbation with many centres spread over several miles.

Ignoring tourists like us, the seasoned commuter will use a route, station, entrance and platform position that maximises time and cost. There is a limit to the journey time and because of this both lines have been talked about for decades because unlike other cities its urban metro/underground/overground has never had the ability to run express/non-stop/limited stop services into the centre.

 

This has had the impact of:

downgrading capacity of many mainline routes into the city at peak times.

obliging commuters to change at mainline terminals with ridiculously long transfer times.

inability to provide cross country services across London.

a patchwork of routes and rolling stock which have different power sources operation and loading gauges.

 

The Crossrail principle is not equivalent to a bus route across the city where bus capacity and frequency must increase to cope with demand as you approach the centre , neither is it a fast tube, neither is it for "... people getting on at one stop in London and getting off at another stop in London." It is to increase the go to work zone outwards to beyond the M25 by providing shorter journey times through faster trains and several new hubs in Central London with shorter transfer times. The idiot Brunel built his station to serve a canal and not any useful London destination. The lines from the East terminated in the City. Crossrail provides a service which extends the feasible commuting distance for those coming in from the East and West to the opposite end.

The case for Crossrail 2 is nowhere near as well made and as clear cut as that of Crossrail and is muddied by the huge demand on the current mainline routes North which requires a solution. It certainly isn't to move "... Tory commuters in the leafy Home Counties..." , which would be uneconomic as there are relatively less of them and who are more likely to use the fast and semi-fasts into Victoria, Waterloo, London Bridge etc.,

The "corridor" has many routes and services and some do cross the river. The trains cannot stop at many station on route because this would slow the whole system down. In the North NR Anglia etc/TfL will be the exchange points between those commuters who continue by current rail to the northern terminal and the Docklands and those who will enter the new tunnels and the new hubs. In the South the commuter routes are much more fragmented and interchange is difficult as the terminii are often poorly connected. The new route seeks to relieve some of these problems.

Historically inner London tends to have Labour seats whilst outer London and the home counties Conservative and LD, therefore as Crossrail and Crossrail2 are primarily to serve commuters from outer London. Proximity, fare structure and alternatives contribute to the usefulness of Crossrail2 to the innercity constituencies.

 

---------- Post added 25-07-2017 at 22:39 ----------

 

ads36, if you can explain how a slightly faster train can achieve a centre to centre journey time of 30 minutes I for one would, love to know.

 

The current maximum line speed on the Hope Valley line is 90 mph.

 

The fastest Class 185 units currently running on the line are capable of 100mph, but large stretches of the current track restrict them to 60 mph, and in some sections even less. They're the newest at 11-12 years old. Almost 40 year old HSTs have run on the line, but although capable of 125 mph they're subject to the same restrictions.

 

The old Pacers and their replacements couldn't go much faster than at present because they're stopping and starting all the way along the route.

 

Even if an HST could run up to 125 mph it would soon catch up with a stopping service or a freight train slowing it down to 50 or 60 mph at best. And if it could run without restrictions it would get snarled up in congestion at Sheffield or Piccadilly

 

Reducing the current best times from about 50 minutes to 45 might be possible with track and signalling improvements, allowing current trains to use their full capability for more of the route.

 

Totally agree:

Add- single line sections at Dore and Hazel Grove.

Three of Britain's longest tunnels.

Crossing mainlines at Stockport and Manchester Picadilly.

Remove- HSTs which don't and won't run on this line.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Annie Bynnol

[1978 14]

Sorry, HSTs did run on the Hope Valley line for a short period when the West Coast line was blocked for engineering work a few years ago. It was a regular diversion service using the Dore curve and avoiding Sheffield. Agreed there's no chance they'd be used today, but my point was that even if they were they couldn't use their speed because of the line restrictions.

[Cyclone 10]

ads36, if you can explain how a slightly faster train can achieve a centre to centre journey time of 30 minutes I for one would, love to know.

 

The current maximum line speed on the Hope Valley line is 90 mph.

 

The fastest Class 185 units currently running on the line are capable of 100mph, but large stretches of the current track restrict them to 60 mph, and in some sections even less. They're the newest at 11-12 years old. Almost 40 year old HSTs have run on the line, but although capable of 125 mph they're subject to the same restrictions.

 

The old Pacers and their replacements couldn't go much faster than at present because they're stopping and starting all the way along the route.

 

Even if an HST could run up to 125 mph it would soon catch up with a stopping service or a freight train slowing it down to 50 or 60 mph at best. And if it could run without restrictions it would get snarled up in congestion at Sheffield or Piccadilly

 

Reducing the current best times from about 50 minutes to 45 might be possible with track and signalling improvements, allowing current trains to use their full capability for more of the route.

 

I think you're making his point aren't you. No modern HS train (which do considerably more than 125, we're not talking about old intercity 125 slam doors) would alter the time taken. It's the line and the freight as you point out that are the problem, not the speed of the trains on it.

[LeMaquis 10]

London is a very big conurbation with many centres spread over several miles.

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

[sgtkate 10]

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

What's with the rude reply? Annie has taken time to write out a knowledgeable answer and you pick up on one line to make a snidy and pointless comeback.

[Hopman 46]

When they take the tunnelling equipment to Woodhead for the new road, couldn't they build a faster rail route when they cancel the road project?

[geared 303]

When they take the tunnelling equipment to Woodhead for the new road, couldn't they build a faster rail route when they cancel the road project?

 

"When they take the tunnelling equipment to Woodhead for the new road"

 

oh you joker you!

 

Got more chance of flying pigs crossing the Pennines than we have a motorway being dug underneath it.

[LeMaquis 10]

What's with the rude reply? Annie has taken time to write out a knowledgeable answer and you pick up on one line to make a snidy and pointless comeback.

 

You seem to have confused the words knowledgeable and misinformed gibberish. I was going to take it apart line by line but my rude reply would have been 100 times more voluminous and i didn't want to be late for work.

 

In short, anyone who writes "The idiot Brunel" and expects to be taken seriously when discussing rail transport is on a par with someone who writes "The idiot Baird" when discussing home entertainment.

[1978 14]

"When they take the tunnelling equipment to Woodhead for the new road"

 

oh you joker you!

 

Got more chance of flying pigs crossing the Pennines than we have a motorway being dug underneath it.

 

A road might be in a tunnel, but needn't be a deep tunnel. Much of it could be cut and cover as gradients on a road can be greater than on a railway.

 

However, we're straying off topic as the Pennine crossings are HS3 and this is really about HS2.

[geared 303]

I think you're missing the point in that there isn't going to be any new road in the first place.

[Martin C 81]

You seem to have confused the words knowledgeable and misinformed gibberish. I was going to take it apart line by line but my rude reply would have been 100 times more voluminous and i didn't want to be late for work.

 

In short, anyone who writes "The idiot Brunel" and expects to be taken seriously when discussing rail transport is on a par with someone who writes "The idiot Baird" when discussing home entertainment.

 

I think most would agree with Annie that Paddington isn't by any means the best located London station.

[alchemist 35]

I think you're missing the point in that there isn't going to be any new road in the first place.

 

Or indeed railway by the time the government has finished chopping it