Now it is HS3!!!

[Workingman]

Or the Northern Powerhouse Railway.

It benefits two cities and two cities only: Leeds and Manchester. The 'benefit', if that is how it is to be described, will cut the journey time between the two to 30 minutes, saving about 20 minutes, at a cost of £6bn. It is supposed to be the centre of a Northern Hub.

The problem is that it does not benefit other cities on the periphery: Liverpool, Hull, Sheffield, York, Bradford or the North East. They will still rely on the old Victorian lines and clapped out trains to get to the HS3 terminals.

If the government is going to spend big money on northern railways it would be better spent on upgrading the existing lines so that modern trains running at higher speeds can interconnect all places. A 40 mile stretch capable of running at 140 MPH is neither here not there. All it is doing is connecting the end points of HS2 to form a loop.

[saundra]

I agree we most certainly need upgrade here instead of the pathetic service we have

[Workingman]

Saundra, a few of us were thinking of Brid for a day out from Leeds. Two hours each way, change at Hull, and £28 for a 60 mile one -way journey put us off. Coastliner coach only takes 30 minutes more and at a fraction of the cost. Going by train via York takes over four hours!

[TheOstrich]

I agree entirely. HS3 is a nonsense. The engineering requirements of a high-speed line will be massively challenging for starters, due to the geography. They'd do better looking at resurrecting the old Woodhead Tunnel route for a conventional but fast Liverpool - Manchester - Sheffield / Leeds service.

[Workingman]

Ossie, you are a bit of a railhead (as in petrolhead), could you explain why it is that us passengers know what is better for us than the railway experts and planners?

Woodhead closed when, early 70s? Since then the fastest route between Sheffield and Manchester has been via Huddersfield and the Trans-Pennine. This takes about an hour for the 30 or so miles between the two cities and doubles the distance.

There have been calls forever to reopen Woodhead and upgrade the line, but no, HS3 is to build new tunnels between Leeds and Manc, which the Sheff services can use.

[Suff]

It seems that the tunnels are owned by the Grid and two of them are cabled. They have plans to cable the third.

There's a lot of info on the wiki page but it seems to come down to a few things.

Woodhead 1/2 are Victorian bore and need to be re-bored for modern trains. Also they're full of cables. Woodhead3 is a better bore but the Grid want to lay it with cables as the cables in 1/2 are running to the end of their life and it's easier to cable 3 than it is to re-cable 1/2.

I'm guessing that it would take a big push to get them back into public hands, provide alternate cable routing and re-bore the tunnels.

It would seem to me that re-boring tunnel 1 and re-cabling tunnel 2 would do the trick. But, of course, that would take common sense, investment and a strong steely fist round the gonads of the board of the Grid....

Can't see it myself.

[JoM]

I agree that the present service needs improving before this goes ahead.
My local line, the Chase line, reopened around 1989 and is very well used. Trains run between Birmingham New St and Rugeley Trent Valley. We've always had trains at half hourly intervals, until it was decided a couple of years ago to cut this to an hourly service even though passenger numbers were up. Most services run with two carriages which means standing room only for many passengers.
Work had been ongoing over the last couple of years with the electrification of the line. This has meant a replacement bus service at weekends but hey ho, once it's done we're promised a more frequent and faster service.
Work is due to be completed in 2017, but it's now come to light that there won't actually be the rolling stock available for another year or so after that.

[Suff]

Whilst I was travelling via train from Edinburgh to FIFE, Scotrail insisted on putting on 2 carriage trains smack in the middle of the rush hour. That was when I found out that an older sprinter can, in the end of the Carriage in the cross passageway before the main area, take 4 people across the space. Jammed like sardines. Will filled that space with more than 40 people. Even then people could not get on the train and the next one was not for 20 minutes. At the next 3 stops nobody could get on.

Even capital cities have their issues. Scotrail is now run by a Dutch firm..

[Workingman]

Suff, the stuff about the reboring and recabling has been going on round here for years. The debate about the best way has been endless.

However, let me put it this way. Connecting Sheff and Manc directly is far better than having to go via Trans-Pennine and Huddersfield. It might well be hard, but so are brand new tunnels on the Trans-Penn.

Jo, and Suff again. Your problems are nationwide. Towns outside major cities are simply not being served. York to Leeds, 25 miles, a 53 min journey on some trains. It is quicker to walk, and the overcrowding is legend. Buses have passenger limits, trains seem to be able to cram in as many as they can with no limit.

[cromwell]

Now Bradford and York councils (?) are saying that they should have HS3 stations too!

The unworthy thought does occur that the more stops there are for a train service, the slower the service becomes. So perhaps HS3 should be renamed the NPHS3 (not particularly high speed 3..)