Re: Alternative to the 3rd Runway Alternative

disgoftunwells wrote:
On 4 Oct, 17:37, stephen.far...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 3 Oct, 16:22, disgoftunwells <disgoftunwe...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On 3 Oct, 13:35, Stephen Farrow <stephen.far...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
disgoftunwells wrote:
On 1 Oct, 03:31, Stephen Farrow <stephen.far...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
disgoftunwells wrote:
On 30 Sep, 09:20, Neil Williams <pacer...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 30 Sep, 09:08, disgoftunwells <disgoftunwe...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
... all for a lot less than HS2.
Thoughts?
It wouldn't exactly help north WCML overcrowding nor the Northern
cities, would it, despite those having a far worse capacity problem
than the south WCML commuter services? A very London-centric
proposal, and not a very sensible one.
I agree it's a London centric solution, but you don't explain why it's
not very sensible.
It's not very sensible *because* it's a London-centric solution, and
there are serious capacity problems further north that need to be
addressed. Believe it or not, there is life outside the south-east.
OK, I'm sure these can be solved more cost effectively than a new high
speed line designed to bring Manchester closer to London.
But actually the biggest benefit would be for people who want to avoid
London. Getting from Brighton to Birmingham for example is a real
pain. This line would provide a London bypass. At present, London is
the only major City where you have to change trains and take a tube to
get across it.
Nope. Depending on where you're coming from and where you're going to,
you have to change trains and stations to cross Manchester, Glasgow,
Birmingham and Liverpool.
I was not aware of needing to take a tube to change trains at the
above mentioned.
Disingenuous.



I know Birmingham and walking from Moor Street to New Street is not
comparable to Victoria to Euston.
But you clearly don't know Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. Getting
from Piccadilly to Victoria by public transport with luggage isn't all
that different from getting from, say, Euston to Waterloo (*without*
luggage, Euston to Waterloo is a longer walk, but perfectly doable and
the preferable option on a nice day). The only difference is that in
Manchester the metro service you take between the two stations isn't
underground.

Fair enough. Though Manchester has through trains? London has
Thameslink. With Thameslink upgrade and Crossrail, will finally have
descent through links.

Manchester has some through trains from south/east of the city towards Liverpool/Preston, but there are still several significant destinations where a change of stations in Manchester city centre would be required on a train journey from the south (Oldham, Ashton, Rochdale, anywhere on the Caldervale line, Blackburn, Clitheroe).






If you had every 15 minutes
- A fast service South Coast -> LGW > Terminal 5 > Milton Keynes >
North, serving 4 seperate destinations per hour,
- A slower service stopping where the line crosses the SWT line, the
FGW line, and Chiltern line, with park and ride off the M25.
Then you have easy access from South and South West and West of London
to the WCML, and vice versa. You'd also take pressure off / provide an
alternative to X-Country services via New Street.
And that's still a solution that doesn't pay sufficient attention to
problems further north. Not every problem on the rail network can be
solved by changing service patterns around London.
Same with the new service improvements from Ashford to Hastings. Not
every solution has to pay attention to problems further north.
It does when it's a proposal intended partly to improve journey times
to cities in the North.



The original focus was to improve rail access to Heathrow to avoid the
need to interconnect there. Any project there will have more impact on
London than on cities to the north and west.
If you suggest a scheme to improve links between Northern cities, I
won't say it's a non sensical solution becuase it does nothing to
improve train travel along the south coast.
Again, that's disingenuous. The point of an HSL from London to points
north would only partly be to remove the need for domestic flights by
improving rail access to Heathrow. Spending the kind of money involved
*just* to take a couple of dozen domestic flights a day out of the
air, given the passenger carrying capacity of an HSL, would, in fact,
be overkill.

I agree, but the Conservative HSL was mooted as an alternative to the
3rd runway.

My view is that in a small country like England, the money would be
better spent on providing more capacity, reliability and comfort at
125 mph, and more through links. I travel to York a bit and improving
on 2hrs is less important to me than a seat, leg room, service and
WiFi. The worst part of the journey is crossing London, as a
Northerner who wants to visit Brighton will agree. (Though I see you
can change once at Watford Junction)

Thameslink, IF available, is much better than the tube, especially
with the new St Pancras Thameslink station. (More helpful for ECML
than WCML).

As for access to Heathrow, how does a Fast line from Milton Keynes to
Heathrow compare to a High Speed Line from Manchester to London, at
providing access to Heathrow. Some approximate assumptions:

1. Manchester to Heathrow via London Euston / St / Pancras

a. Current time: 3 hours 16 min (fastest of five displaying on TTL),
including about 2:10 on Intercity.
b. Assuming WCML upgrade (from 2009): 3 hours
c. Assuming High speed line Manchester to St Pancras: 2hrs 30 min.
d. Assuming Cross Rail spur to St Pancras and High Speed line: 2 hours
e. Assuming High Speed line from St Pancras to Heathrow, allowing
direct services: 1hr 40 min.

2. Manchester to Heathrow via Milton Keynes, with medium speed line
(200km/hr) MK to Heathrow

a. Manchester to MK current:1hr 43 min, plus 10 min change plus 30 min
to LHR: 2hrs 20 min.
b. With WCML upgrade and faster trains stopping at MK : 2 hours
c. With WCML upgrade and direct trains: 1 hr 50 min.

For access to Heathrow, Option 1 really doesn't make sense. Option 2
gives all the benefits for a fraction of the costs. It would also give
access to Gatwick in 2hrs 10 minutes. And, it would give passengers
direct services from Manchester to Heathrow, which only option 1e of
the high speed lines would give.

Manchester passengers already have a direct service to Heathrow... on BA and BMI.

The thing about the domestic flights that this proposal is supposed to eliminate is that the people on them are mostly travelling on by air to somewhere far beyond London. From Manchester, it doesn't make a great deal of sense, time-wise, to fly to London unless you're starting from somewhere very near Manchester airport, or going to somewhere very near Heathrow, or both. And for a transfer passenger, there's a certain attraction in checking in at your local airport and not seeing your bags again until you get to your final destination - whereas, of course, with an HSL to Heathrow you'd have to drag them on and off a train (I can't imagine that a Manchester or Leeds airline checkin point for Heathrow would be feasible). The point is, even an HSL wouldn't make Heathrow a more attractive proposition for people in the catchment area of Manchester airport. That particular rationale for the scheme really hasn't been thought through (which figures, given where it came from).

There are good, sound reasons why an HSL heading from London to Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire might be a valuable thing to build. They don't have anything to do with Heathrow.

--

Stephen

Lorelai: Do you have any Lucille Balls left?
Kirk: Yes, I have some Balls.
.

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