High Speed Train

[Kaz]

Where we are in need of routes in this country is going from east to west, not north to south I don't see the point of knocking half an hour or whatever off of the noth/south routes when it can be so very difficult to cross the county from east to west

Unless of course this is for the benefit of Londoners, and that would never be the case

[saundra]

it will take years and years of enquiries
and treble the cost at least
and i wont be around to see it i dont expect

[TheOstrich]

Our house falls within the two outer black lines.

Oh good grief, Cromwell, my commiserations .....

We're not that far from the stretch running north from the triangular junction for Birmingham, but far enough away for it not to be a problem. My boss, however, has the same problem as you in that the route runs a few hundred yards from their house, although I think it will be in a cutting at that point.

Some local villages near here, like Middleton, will be devastated, the line runs alongside it, and some sort of traction depot is going to be built there.

I'm not a supporter of HS2 and have signed petitions against it. It will be massively disruptive to build, of unproven economic benefit, and to what end? Fat-cats who can afford the fares will be able to get to London from Birmingham just 35 minutes quicker .....

[JoM]

Oh goodness Cromwell, how exactly does that affect you...is it just that it's close or that your home will be affected?
It's running very near to our friends' house just outside of LIchfield, they already have Virgin trains whizzing past frequently though and don't seem too bothered about this.

[Workingman]

Ossie, I know that you have an interest in trains and things. Is there any reason why the idea of building high(er) speed lines alongside the existing main lines has been dropped.

I saw it proposed as an alternative to HS a long time ago, but it has disappeared into the long grass. We would have got at least one fast East/West route and all the major cities would be connected including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle.

[cromwell]

Os, the point about the cutting is a good one; when HS2 passes through South Yorkshire, in some places it will be underground.
Here though, it will have to go over a main road and an existing railway line; I think the most logical way to do that would be a viaduct.
Jo, there is a slight hill between us and the line; as the crow flies I reckon it will be 150 - 200 yards away, so it's not too bad, assuming that it isn't too noisy. Some houses in the village will be less than 50 yards away though, some considerably less.
We will have to see what happens I guess.

[TheOstrich]

Ossie, I know that you have an interest in trains and things. Is there any reason why the idea of building high(er) speed lines alongside the existing main lines has been dropped.

I saw it proposed as an alternative to HS a long time ago, but it has disappeared into the long grass. We would have got at least one fast East/West route and all the major cities would be connected including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle.

I don't think it was ever considered to be a realistic approach, WM. If you look at the West Coast Main Line, it (a) runs directly through the middle of a lot of conurbations (Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby) - historically the towns expanded around the existing railway - and (b) it's not exactly straight-line. It's far easier to engineer HS2 as an entirely new-build, and it is, in the event (but only to a certain extent), following the path of disused railway lines anyway, as Cromwell & yourself pointed out earlier.

As for Glasgow, constructing a straight HS2 through the Lune Valley north of Preston towards Carlisle alongside the existing line would be an engineering nightmare. It's one of the reasons why geographically, Britain doesn't lend itself to high speed rail. There again, there's no point considering extending HS2 to Glasgow / Edinburgh as following their independance in 2014, we'll have to erect Border posts and controls at Carlisle and Berwick which will negate any time saving anyway. "Open your suitcase, Madam ... have you declared that haggis?"

As far as East/West is concerned, there isn't really much of a demand for it. OK, there are proposals to link Cambridge thrrough to Oxford via Bedford, Milton Keynes and Bicester which are in the current rail plan and might arrive (well, the Oxford - Bedford stretch) by around 2017. But, as has been pointed out by commentators more informed than me, everything revolves around London. In fact, it's interesting to read reports that HS2, far from creating wealth in the Midlands, might drain it away to the Smoke. When they improved the frequency and reliability of the West of England line in the 1980s and 1990s (Waterloo - Salisbury - Yeovil - Exeter), the area where we lived, South Somerset, quickly became commuter-belt London ......

[TheOstrich]

Os, the point about the cutting is a good one; when HS2 passes through South Yorkshire, in some places it will be underground.
Here though, it will have to go over a main road and an existing railway line; I think the most logical way to do that would be a viaduct.
Jo, there is a slight hill between us and the line; as the crow flies I reckon it will be 150 - 200 yards away, so it's not too bad, assuming that it isn't too noisy. Some houses in the village will be less than 50 yards away though, some considerably less.
We will have to see what happens I guess.

You should be able to access really detailed local maps on the Government website, Cromwell, which would indicate where it's to be in a cutting or a viaduct - well, you could when I looked at the original Phase 1 proposals for our area a couple of years back, although the website tools were a total nighmare to navigate and probably still are, indeed, I spent some time trying to look at your "East of Wakefield" section yesterday, only to keep on getting a really detailed view of Featherstone .....

I think one positive is that once it's built, when all is done, and the environs have been landscaped and restored to a semblence of normality, it shouldn't be too obtrusive or noisy, going by the development of the HS1 line south of London.

It's just the 10 years of complete disruption while they build it which will be a pain ......

[cromwell]

Had to laugh - we were driving to the pub to get our Sunday lunch when we passed two people by a parked up car, map clutched in their hands, gazing out over a muddy field. "I know what you're doing" I thought..

They were trying to work out where HS2 is going!

As it passes though here, in less than a mile it has to go over three seperate train lines and a main road. One of these train lines is the existing Leeds - London main line, and it is on a fair sized viaduct itself - the HS2 viaduct, assuming that's what it will be, has to be immense!

[Workingman]

Cromwell, if you are talking about the viaduct just outside Sandal then HS2 will have to be on stilts from before there, over the Donny Road, and on until it has passed over the M62!!! There isn't enough room to get it back to ground level then up and over the Aire and Calder navigation and even higher over the M62 again. Immense isn't the right word.

It'll be a classy entry into Leeds for the toffs. All those sidings down Pontefract Road, the mountains of containers at Stourton, sludge pits at Knowesthorpe and more sidings down by Hunslet Eng.... but they will have a new terminal and platform at LCS.

Ossie, ta for the reply. It's a shame the idea never got the time it merited. There was a time when it looked feasible - not as an HS superfast line but as a faster line next to the existing.