WEST COAST MAIN LINE DISRUPTION HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR HS2

IT was another hugely frustrating weekend for travellers on Europe’s busiest trunk railway line — England’s West Coast Main Line — with journeys extended by up to two hours as passengers had to ride on buses between Milton Keynes and Rugby . . . a journey that should take little more then 20 minutes by train.

But this was not because of planned engineering work for route modernization, as happened for many years past, but because of the collapse on Friday 1 March of a section of the overhead line equipment (OHLE) at Hanslope, Bucks, providing 25kV ac electric power to the trains on one of the busiest sections of Britain’s busiest route . . . the same line that opponents of the proposed High Speed Two project claim should be carrying even more trains!

Politicians (and HS2 opposers) like to say that £9 billon of taxpayers’ money has been invested in ‘upgrading’ the West Coast Main Line.  But they forget that the original upgrade plan was totally botched and led to the demise of Railtrack PLC. The scheme that was originally projected to cost £1.5 billion was in danger of surpassing £20 billion by the time Tony Blair’s government put Railtrack into administration in October 2001, replacing it with the not-for-dividend company, Network Rail.

Together with the then Strategic Rail Authority — later absorbed by Alistair Darling into the Department for Transport — Network Rail ‘de-scoped’ the upgrade into what became known as the West Coast Route Modernization (WCRM) programme.

De-scoping simply meant that elements of the original project were left out of the revised programme, to save money and keep the total cost below £10 billion.  And one of the items omitted was a substantial amount of the proposed upgrade to the electrification infrastructure and the power supply.

Wrong components

A recent report for the Office of Rail Regulation by Virgin Trains’ chief operating officer, Chris Gibb, identified some of the consequences of the de-scoping, including the installation of ‘neutral sections’ within the OHLE that were not the right ones for the job.  As a result, equipment designed to be used with trains operating below 160km/h (100mph) was installed on a railway on which up to ten Virgin Pendolino tilting electric trains run each way every hour at 200km/h (125mph) — and since last December the route is also now used by 4-car London Midland ‘Desiro’ trains that have been accelerated to 175km/h (110mph).

Chris Gibb’s report stated: “It appears that the West Coast Route Modernisation project team were more focused on within-budget/on-time delivery of the project than the medium/long-term component performance, and this approach has clearly cost NR and the industry dearly in terms of poor performance.”

The huge WCML disruption on 1 March resulted from the OHLE collapsing as a London Midland train passed beneath it near Hanslope Junction. Network Rail has not yet said what may have caused it — although TV news pictures showed two pantographs lying beside the track, apparently ripped off trains after becoming entangled in the overhead wiring — but there had been two similar events recently, on the Midland Main Line at Radlett, Herts, and on the East Coast Main Line near St Neots, Beds, both of which were blamed by Network Rail on faulty components.

Electric trains at present are not normally allowed to run in Britain above 160km/h (100mph) with more than one pantograph in contact with the OHLE — but a fortnight ago London Midland and Network Rail carried out trials with 12-car Desiro trains (3 x 4-car units coupled together) running at 175km/h, requiring pantographs on all three units to be raised to collect the electric current.  London Midland said the need to restrict its trains above 160km/h to four coaches, using just one pantograph, had “led to crowding on a number of our Birmingham/Crewe to London services which can only have four carriages when using the ‘fast’ lines between Rugby/Milton Keynes and London.”

London Midland added: “To enable 8 and 12 carriage trains to operate at 110mph (175km/h), a new ‘high speed’ pantograph is required, and a week-long programme of tests — which has included the installation of hi-tech monitoring equipment and roof-mounted cameras on three trains — is taking place over the 18-22 February half term period when commuter numbers are slightly lower.”

OHLE is nearly 50 years old

 

We must wait to learn the actual cause of the damage to the OHLE at Hanslope last Friday. However, the electrification equipment on the WCML is already coming up for 50 years old, and has been subject to intense usage — as mentioned above, the WCML is the most heavily-used trunk railway in Europe — and it has suffered many problems since West Cast Route Modernisation was completed in December 2008.

Nor is the OHLE the only source of difficulties — Virgin Trains reckons 70 per cent of its delays are caused by a range of infrastructure faults on the WCML — and the drawback of continuing to run an intensive mixed-traffic train service on such an ageing route (it will be 175 years old in September this year) is highlighted by the train performance statistics since December 2008 when the ‘route modernization’ programme ended.

Figures provided by the Office of Rail Regulation show that in only one quarter between December 2008 and December 2012 did Virgin exceed 90 per cent of its trains reaching their destinations within 10 minutes of right time.

Indeed, over the four years since the end of ‘route modernisation’ the average punctuality of Virgin’s trains has been only 84.7 per cent — in other words, 15.3 per cent of all trains have reached their destinations more than 10 minutes late — hardly a satisfactory result after £9 billion of taxpayers’ ‘investment’!

In fact, Virgin Trains has the worst punctuality record of all of Britain’s franchised train operating companies. But it has to be to the company’s great credit that, by whatever means the research is undertaken, whether by Passenger Focus or Which? magazine, Virgin Trains achieves the highest customer satisfaction rating of all train companies.

But, then, the figures also clearly show that Virgin has had considerable experience of how to respond to major delays — just like last weekend’s — because of infrastructure failures on the WCML.

Notwithstanding any of this, or the fact that we remain very dependent on some pretty old and worn down infrastructure — and more capacity is required if only to ensure greater resilience, let alone cope with continuing growth — the (Anti) HS2 Action Alliance continues to propose that even more trains should run on the WCML at 200km/h.

On the other hand David Higgins — with a Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Sydney, who became Chief Executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority and is now CEO of Network Rail — says the route is being ‘pounded’ and will be ‘trashed’ by the time HS2 opens in 2026.

The government’s Command Paper, published on 28 January along with plans for extending HS2 to Manchester and Leeds, states: “HS2 will be a new railway network, built to modern engineering standards and using the latest technologies.

And it adds: “HS1 and high speed rail networks overseas operate with far higher levels of infrastructure reliability than is achieved on Britain’s existing inter-city rail network. HS1 has operated with an average train delay [Eurostar and Southeastern] of just 6.8 seconds.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see such excellent performance and minimal delays on the WCML?

In reality, the age and condition of the infrastructure, and the complexity of the mixed traffic — express inter-city, regional long-distance and commuter passenger trains, plus around 50 per cent of all of Britain’s rail freight — make that impossible.

Only HS2 can provide fast, reliable, punctual journeys — as well as contribute to creating much greater network capacity — between Britain’s major regions and cities.

  • Posted on 4. March 2013
  • Written by Richard
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We need HS2 to release West Coast capacity

Previously HS2-NW wrote “The reason we need HS2 is capacity capacity capacity“. A claim vigorously denied by localist anti HS2 campaigners, who had used selective figures for Virgin services which showed evening peak services leaving Euston are only on average 52% loaded.

However figures released by GreenGauge21 showed that some Virgin services were in fact 80% loaded and figures released by Network Rail showed that services operated by London Midland are operating at 94% capacity – with traffic levels growing at 4% per year.

Indeed some Virgin services departing Euston for Manchester after the evening peak period operate at over 100% capacity, meaning some passengers are left standing over long distances.

If all this were not compelling enough figures just released by the BBC show that 3 out of the top 10 most crowded services in the UK are regional services operated London Midland departing from Euston for Birmingham.  The figures reveal that some peak services leaving Euston are over 150% loaded.

“Three London Midland evening rush-hour trains from Euston to Birmingham on the west coast mainline featured in the 10 most packed services — possibly underlining the government’s argument that the planned High Speed 2 route is needed to add capacity.”  — Guardian report, 20 December 2012

The majority of the most crowded services operated by LM are also served by the longest trains permissible on the WCML which often have 2+3 seating. 

trainpasserngers

Given the latest figures, it would seem strange to suggest there is no capacity problem on the WCML and it would be stranger still to propose cutting services currently operated by London Midland in favour of more ‘fast’ intercity trains.

Cutting local and regional services is however just what those opposed to HS2 propose as an “alternative” to building a new line. A full report published by HS2-NW looking into the 51M optimised alternative shows that some London Midland stopping services would be scrapped in favour of more direct intercity services.

Proponents of HS2 have argued all along that a new line is needed on the grounds of capacity, and the latest figures give further weight to this argument, especially given that long distance rail travel on the WCML has been growing at 6% a year.

HS2 will divert long distance services to the North onto the new line thereby freeing up paths on the WCML for increased local and regional services like those currently operated my London Midland and for more freight trains for which demand is also growing.

For more information about how HS2 phase 1 will benefit the WCML click here

  • Posted on 26. February 2013
  • Written by Richard
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The carbon impacts of HS2

This report, commissioned from Greengauge 21 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), RSPB and the Campaign for Better Transport, examines the impacts of HS2 on carbon emissions.

The report highlights that the first phase of HS2 will lead to a modest reduction in carbon while adding substantial transport capacity. Greater carbon reduction can be achieved by sensible complementary policy measures and by making full use of the capacity that HS2 will release on the existing railway.  In addition, the beneficial carbon effect is increased fourfold by the planned extension of HS2 further north.

Government’s plans for high-speed rail can therefore help meet carbon emissions targets — if supported by a set of bold policy initiatives.

 

Download the report here (1.3Mb).

An interim report on the carbon research study was previously published in December 2011, drawing on research carried out by Transport and Environmental Policy Researchand Systra.

The research study was sponsored by:

    Systra

  • Posted on 2. February 2013
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Official Route Maps High Speed 2 (HS2)

About the maps

This set of maps provides a detailed depiction of the HS2 phase two West Midlands to Leeds and Manchester line of route.

Route maps

The overall route is shown on the two route maps: ‘Route map West Midlands to Leeds’ and ‘Route map West Midlands to Manchester’. The route maps also illustrate how the route has been split into route sections and gives the section reference number for each section.

Line of route plan and profile maps

The plan and profile maps show the specific line of the route on Ordnance Survey mapping background. The bottom portion of each map depicts the profile of the line in relation to the ground – for example, showing where the line is in a cutting or on an embankment, bridge or viaduct. They also show indicative road diversions and junction layouts.

The plan and profile maps are organised by route section, and each section has a key map showing the extent covered by the plan and profile maps. The scale used for each map is shown on the map and varies depending on rural or urban location.

Route map West Midlands to Leeds

Plan of the initial preferred route from the West Midlands to Leeds showing which route section covers which area.

West Midlands to Leeds route section map – drawing number HS2-ARP-000-DR-RT-55001

PDF, 13.6MB, 1 page

This file may not be accessible. Request a different format.

To request this document in an alternative format such as braille, audio or a different file type please email hs2enquiries@hs2.org.uk quoting your address, telephone number along with the title of the publication (“West Midlands to Leeds route section map – drawing number HS2-ARP-000-DR-RT-55001″).

Route section HSL01 Water Orton to Birchmoor

Route section HSL06 Birchmoor to Tonge

Route section HSL09 Tonge to Long Eaton

Route section HSL12/27 Long Eaton to Trowell

Route section HSL13 Trowell to Killamarsh

Route section HSL14 Killamarsh to Tinsley

Route section HSL15 Tinsley to Blackburn

Route section HSL16 Blackburn to Cold Hiendley

Route section HSL17 Cold Hiendley to Church Fenton

Route section HSL21 Cold Hiendley to Woodlesford

Route section HSL22 and HSL31 Woodlesford to Hunslet and Hunslet to Leeds New Lane Station

Route map West Midlands to Manchester

Plan of the initial preferred route from the West Midlands to Manchester showing which route section covers which area.

West Midlands to Manchester route section map – drawing number HS2-MSG-WM0-ZZ-DR-RT-40014

PDF, 8.5MB, 1 page

This file may not be accessible. Request a different format.

To request this document in an alternative format such as braille, audio or a different file type please email hs2enquiries@hs2.org.uk quoting your address, telephone number along with the title of the publication (“West Midlands to Manchester route section map – drawing number HS2-MSG-WM0-ZZ-DR-RT-40014″).

Route section HSM03 Streethay to Swynnerton

Route section HSM06 Swynnerton to Madeley

Route section HSM08 Madeley to Hough

Route section HSM09 Hough to Crewe

Route section HSM10 Hough to Winterbottom

Route section HSM12 Winterbottom to Warburton

Route section HSM21 Warburton to Lowton

Route section HSM22 Lowton to Bamfurlong

Route section HSM28 Winterbottom to Ardwick

Route section HSM26 Ardwick to Manchester Piccadilly Station

Route section HSM30 Rostherne to Warburton

HS2 phase two initial preferred route

HS2 phase two consultation

HS2 Ltd advice to government on phase two of HS2

Delivery partner reports to government on phase two of HS2

Background to HS2

  • Posted on 30. January 2013
  • Written by Richard
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High speed rail line ‘a shot in the arm’ for economy

High speed rail line ‘a shot in the arm’ for economy

A prototype of the high speed HS2 train.A prototype of the high speed HS2 train.

Published on Thursday 24 January 2013 06:00

 

A LEADING business figure has described plans for a high speed rail line connecting Yorkshire to London as a “shot in the arm” for the economy as the Government confirmed transport funding worth more than £300m will be handed over to councils and local enterprise partnerships in the region.

 

Neil McLean, chairman of the Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, offered his support for the ‘High Speed Two’ (HS2) line as the Government prepares to publish details of the proposed route for the second phase of the project between Birmingham and Yorkshire.

In a letter to the Yorkshire Post, Mr McLean writes: “If we want our businesses to compete in today’s global economy, we need quick, reliable connections to markets, suppliers and labour sources; and that’s precisely what HS2 will deliver.”

The Government has faced vocal opposition from some campaigners concerned about the route of the first phase between London and Birmingham but Mr McLean calls for the region to “embrace HS2 just like the Victorians embraced the first railway”.

Greater local control over transport spending for the next 10 years was agreed last year with the Government as part of ‘city deals’ struck with the Leeds and Sheffield City Regions.

Ministers later set out plans to devolve spending on major transport schemes to new “local transport bodies” of councils and LEPs working together, although those areas not covered by a city deal are only receiving money for four years. The Humber will receive £22.2m while North Yorkshire will be handed £14.4m. West Yorkshire and York has secured £182.8m for 10 years with South Yorkshire receiving £113.6m.

 http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/at-a-glance/main-section/high-speed-rail-line-a-shot-in-the-arm-for-economy-1-5346357#.UQEwKRk_viU.twitter
  • Posted on 24. January 2013
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Council chiefs lobby ministers for TWO high speed rail stations

Council chiefs lobby ministers for TWO high speed rail stations

Coun Matthew Colledge, from Trafford council, wrote to the transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin asking him to commit to two HS2 stops in the region.

Greater Manchester council chiefs are lobbying the government to get two high speed rail stations built in the region – including one at Manchester Airport.

Coun Matthew Colledge, from Trafford council, wrote to transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin asking him to commit to two HS2 stops in the region – saying the move could create up to 9,000 jobs and bring an extra £1/2bn to the local economy every year.

Although he says a city centre stop is vital if there is only one one in the area, he adds an

airport stop would be a huge boost.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the airport, Manchester and Trafford councils, Transport for Greater Manchester and Manchester Airport sent the government a bid for a second stop in July.

They expect a detailed announcement about HS2 by the end of the month.

In a letter on behalf of Greater Manchester council leaders, Coun Colledge writes:  “Development of the airport as an employment and transport node, with extensive Metrolink, conventional rail and high speed rail links will create a prospectus for the airport that will be highly sustainable, particularly when compared to other airports, or ‘out of town’ sites.

The letter goes on to say a second HS2 station at the airport would:

  • Serve southern Greater Manchester and Cheshire as well as the airport
  • Encourage employment around the airport area
  • Encourage improved transport links to the airport from across the north
  • Boost development of the Airport City enterprise zone.

As the HS2 route has not yet been announced it is not clear whether trains would travel to Piccadilly or a new station in the city centre before heading to the airport or if trains would alternate between the two stops.

The first section of the £32bn high-speed line – between London and Birmingham – is planned to open in 2026,

with the second phase to Manchester and Leeds following in 2032.

A public consultation on phase two is scheduled for 2014.

The 250mph trains will ‘hop’ off the high-speed line at Birmingham from 2026 and continue north on the existing West Coast Main Line at slower speeds – cutting travel times between London and Manchester to 98 minutes.

But the biggest boost will come when the Manchester branch opens in 2032 – when the journey to London will be slashed to just 68 minutes.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/trafford-council-chiefs-lobby-ministers-1230363

  • Posted on 23. January 2013
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Untitled

Carbon savings from the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail link project between London and the North of England could be greater than previously thought, thanks to rail capacity being freed up for more freight.

The long-term savings could be as much as 65,000 tonnes of carbon a year greater than original predictions suggested.

New research published this month suggests that the Government’s original projections underplayed the benefits of sending more freight by rail rather than road, and only really focused on the savings to be made by encouraging more passengers to make the switch from road to rail.

Added benefits

The new calculations come from environmental consultancy, WSP Group, which estimates that the new link could take as many as 500,000 heavy goods vehicle (HGV) journeys off the M1, M40 and M6 motorways each year, if the resulting free capacity on the existing West Coast Mainline is allocated to freight trains.

WSP Group’s head of rail planning, Ian Brooker, said: “There have been many studies about how the capacity freed up by HS2 could be used and indeed, should be used, but the benefits of reducing road freight have not [until now] been fully assessed.

“Increasing rail freight capacity would have enormous benefits, especially as low carbon technologies for HGVs are still largely undeveloped.”

The report goes on to argue that, based on Department for Transportcalculations for measuring the environmental benefits of shifting road freight to rail, HS2 could save about £45 million a year and bring carbon savings of over 65,000 tonnes a year.

Freight capacity

As things stand – taking HS2 out of the equation – demand for rail freight is growing rapidly and the West Coast Mainline is due to reach its capacity by 2030.

Mr Brooker added: “HS2 could effectively release up to two train paths per hour of freight train capacity in each direction.

“We have conservatively forecast that 40 trains per day would use this additional capacity, which would allow rail freight growth to continue. Allocating this amount of extra capacity to freight would still leave more capacity on the existing railway routes for new rail passenger services.”

Timelines

Construction work for the first stage of the £32 billion HS2 project is due to start in 2017, to link up London and Birmingham with new, high speed infrastructure.

That work is expected to be completed by 2026, and then the line will branch out in a Y-shape to the North West and Yorkshire. In the North West, the link is due to reach Manchester and Liverpool by 2033.

Passenger emissions

A report released last autumn by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and the Campaign for Better Transport, concluded that HS2 could bring ‘per passenger’ journey emission reductions of over 70 per cent.

However it warned that this will only be achieved if people are persuaded to leave their cars at home and travel by rail, if the existing network of electrified lines is expanded further, and if the UK meets its targets for decarbonising the electricity supply, so that most high speed trains will run on renewable power.

http://www.greenintelligence.org.uk/article/hs2-carbon-savings-could-be-higher-expected

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High Speed Rail is popular with the public.

High Speed Rail is popular with the public. That’s the happy new year message from HS1.
Over 25 million domestic passenger journeys have been made on Southeastern’s High Speed One services between London and Kent since the launch of the service.
December saw the three year anniversary of the introduction of Britain’s first domestic high speed service. Hard working staff at Southeastern have achieved some of the best records in punctuality and customer satisfaction in Europe.
Says Charles Horton, managing director of Southeastern, ‘The service has been an overwhelming success. In the three years since the launch we have extended the service to more destinations such as Maidstone West, and to Sandwich and Deal with the support of Kent County Council, and we’ve boosted the number of services in the timetable to meet the increased demand.’
The service was launched in December 2009 and achieved 7.2 million passenger journeys in its first year. Journeys grew to around 8.2 million in the second year, and it now transports over 9 million people a year.
Says Nicola Shaw, chief executive of HS1 Ltd, ‘The world class reliability of High Speed 1 infrastructure keeps delays to customers down and delivers very fast journey times from Kent to London.’
Punctuality is high and the service consistently scores over 90 percent. The service achieved international recognition last summer during the 2012 London Olympics carrying over 2.4 million people to and from the Olympic Park at Stratford.
Athletes, officials, VIPs and thousands of members of the press joined the millions of spectators who left their cars behind to use the Javelin service during the Games.
Half the fleet of Hitachi 395s are named after Britain’s fastest athletes. Southeastern is set to honour the stars of the London 2012 Games and will name the remaining trains after top Olympic and Paralympic Champions as voted by Southeastern employees.

http://www.railstaff.co.uk/2013/01/18/fast-race-for-hs1/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Railco+%28rail.co%29

  • Posted on 19. January 2013
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The locomotive that doesn’t exist

E2012_323_3 cropped

It’s probably obvious to most of my colleagues that I am more than a little fond of our amazing railway models collection.  And a less well known area of that collection are the concept models, made to promote the benefits of new designs.

We’ve recently acquired the concept model above, which is of one of the rarer examples of railway traction – a locomotive that was never built.

The model of the InterCity 250 is one of the few physical remnants of a scheme that, had British Rail had their way, would have revolutionised high speed rail in the UK almost 10 years before Virgin’s Pendolinos appeared on the scene.  The InterCity 250 model was used in the publicity photo below:

In 1994, British Rail boldly stated their aims for the future of passenger travel:

“The two key words that will really decide InterCity’s future are ‘civilised’ and ‘speed’.”

The proposed high speed train illustrates the extent of InterCity’s ambition, before it was privatised along with the rest of British Rail in 1994.  The locomotive concept was devised by design company Seymour Powell, who incidentally designed the famous Lynx deodorant can along with a host of other instantly recognisable designs.

According to contemporary articles by the Design Journal Magazine, the designer strove to come up with a concept for a train that would “make small boys want to become train drivers once more”.  According to contemporary accounts, no concept drawings were created, which may go some way towards explaining why the only available images of the design are based on the model we have acquired.

By the late 1980s, Britain was casting an envious eye towards France where the TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) was revolutionising long distance travel. There was also a sobering realisation within British Rail that any new high speed trains were going to have to run on existing tracks, which were essentially forged in the 19th century. This combination of factors provided the spark for the ill fated IC250 concept.

Running at speeds of up to 155 miles an hour (250kph), these trains, British Rail hoped, would make UK high speed rail the equal of any in Europe. Passengers would be cosseted in boutique hotel style interiors, far superior to anything they would hope to find on the London to Glasgow air shuttle. The InterCity 250 project would involve track and signalling modernisation and complete re-electrification. British Rail also envisaged the IC250 trains running on the East Coast Main Line where their full potential could be unleashed due to the more forgiving terrain on the line.

British Rail were confident enough in the Intercity 250 plan to declare in 1994 that: “the train of the future: the 160mph IC250 is designed and ready”. But not built. Full interior and exterior designs were mocked up, but the trains never progressed beyond the concept stage, and the recently acquired model is valuable evidence of how the last trains designed for British Rail would have appeared.

So what went wrong? Some railway observers see privatisation as the main obstacle in the path of higher speed InterCity trains. Others argue that the concept was always bound to fail and was used to lure prospective purchasers of the InterCity business.

Whatever the truth, the failure of the IC250 meant that passengers on the West Coast Main Line had to endure ageing and increasingly unreliable trains until the introduction of Virgin’s fleet of Pendolino high speed tilting trains in 2002.

https://nationalrailwaymuseum.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/the-locomotive-that-doesnt-exist/

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We need HS2 to release West Coast capacity

From: http://hs2northwest.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/we-need-hs2-to-release-west-coast-capacity/

Previously HS2-NW wrote “The reason we need HS2 is capacity capacity capacity“. A claim vigorously denied by localist anti HS2 campaigners, who had used selective figures for Virgin services which showed evening peak services leaving Euston are only on average 52% loaded.

However figures released by GreenGauge21 showed that some Virgin services were in fact 80% loaded and figures released by Network Rail showed that services operated by London Midland are operating at 94% capacity – with traffic levels growing at 4% per year.

Indeed some Virgin services departing Euston for Manchester after the evening peak period operate at over 100% capacity, meaning some passengers are left standing over long distances.

If all this were not compelling enough figures just released by the BBC show that 3 out of the top 10 most crowded services in the UK are regional services operated London Midland departing from Euston for Birmingham.  The figures reveal that some peak services leaving Euston are over 150% loaded.

“Three London Midland evening rush-hour trains from Euston to Birmingham on the west coast mainline featured in the 10 most packed services — possibly underlining the government’s argument that the planned High Speed 2 route is needed to add capacity.”  — Guardian report, 20 December 2012

The majority of the most crowded services operated by LM are also served by the longest trains permissible on the WCML which often have 2+3 seating. 

trainpasserngers

Given the latest figures, it would seem strange to suggest there is no capacity problem on the WCML and it would be stranger still to propose cutting services currently operated by London Midland in favour of more ‘fast’ intercity trains.

Cutting local and regional services is however just what those opposed to HS2 propose as an “alternative” to building a new line. A full report published by HS2-NW looking into the 51M optimised alternative shows that some London Midland stopping services would be scrapped in favour of more direct intercity services.

Proponents of HS2 have argued all along that a new line is needed on the grounds of capacity, and the latest figures give further weight to this argument, especially given that long distance rail travel on the WCML has been growing at 6% a year.

HS2 will divert long distance services to the North onto the new line thereby freeing up paths on the WCML for increased local and regional services like those currently operated my London Midland and for more freight trains for which demand is also growing.

For more information about how HS2 phase 1 will benefit the WCML click here

  • Posted on 16. January 2013
  • Written by Richard
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