High Speed Rail 2 - White Paper (3 - the West Midlands Termini)

With the London termini found to be wanting, for the new HSR2, then we turn to The West Midlands´ proposals to look at them critically.

The line from London needs a new station called Birmingham Interchange some distance from Birmingham International Airport station to which it is meant to connect. This is ridiculous duplication and waste - the proposed station is not even on the west side of the M42.

Approaching the West Midlands conurbation it is logical to reduce speed to stop at such a station so a lower line speed limit can be applied thus aiding the flexibility of the track layout to permit its entry into Birmingham International Airport station. The trains could then continue up to Lichfield as envisaged. The paper gives us to understand that trains into Birmingham and those onwards to places further north would all stop at the Interchange thus making this proposal realistic.

This would then make Birmingham International the best option (a) to serve the airport and (b) to serve as an out of centre station for those trains that continue northwards.

As can be seen from the DfT proposal on the map from the HSR2 line into central Birmingham a chord is constructed at Water Orton to make use of the present corridor into the centre of the city.

The disadvantage of this is that it makes the line a cul-de-sac. This makes it essential for any traffic from the south to enter down the corridor and if that trafiic is intended to continue northwards then it has to backtrack through the same corridor to connect with HSR2 on towards Lichfield. Thus with this proposal the Birmingham International station is the only realistic option for through traffic.

However, that does not necessarily have to be the case. If HSR2 were directed through Birmingham International then it would connect to the WCML into the city centre. Whether the services terminate at New Street or not wouild depend on the need or desire to construct interconnecting lines in central Birmingham or even a new station at Curzon Street/Fazeley Street.

Is this a realistic option? or can the present inner-city stations be used?
What better than to quote the "do minimum strategy" report by ATKINS (High Speed 2, Strategic Alternatives Study, Rail Interventions Report, March 2010)
"Birmingham New Street is largely at full capacity. The local timetable has been optimised. It would be difficult to operate extra terminating trains.
The Birmingham Gateway project will resolve the passenger congestion issues at the station but is not designed to increase train capacity (except in so far that it assists with passenger (un)loading). Given the constrained nature of the Birmingham New Street site (it is largely underground and surrounded by tall buildings); it is probably more cost effective to build extra platforming capacity elsewhere in Birmingham.

Birmingham has three City Centre stations. In addition to Birmingham New Street station, there is Birmingham Moor St and Birmingham Snow Hill. One advantage of Birmingham New Street is train connectivity. Because many services pass through New Street there will remain a level of demand of for London services to remain at New Street to allow connections with local and inter-regional services.
However in package 3 it is not possible to route trains to Birmingham New Street without them having to run via Leamington (even if non stop), Coventry and Birmingham International, and still maintain competitive end to end journey times. In package 3, because Coventry and International still have to be served, 2 tph will go via the (slow) Leamington, Kenilworth, Coventry, International and New Street route, and 2 tph will run on the faster, direct route to newly reconnected platforms at Birmingham Moor Street (Chiltern Railways´ main Birmingham terminus)

Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street are within sight of each other. A direct pedestrian route exists between the stations takes less than 5 minutes. A mobility impaired route has also been built.

Having an extra 2 tph call at Moor St will require extra platform capacity. Three new platforms have already been built and need simply to be (extended and) reconnected. Snow Hill was considered as a terminus but rejected because of the difficulty of pathing more trains through Snow Hill tunnel and the lack of platforming capacity. Work commissioned by Centro seems to indicate that more platforms could be built to the west should the three platforms be required by Chiltern Railways"

The traffic pattern, as envisaged by the ATKINS report,offers various alternatives (packages) depending on how much investment is involved (not just on the Chiltern HSR2 line). As we indicated in the previous blog (White Paper 2) the most likely options are Packages 3 and 4(Appendix A pages 77-83). These offer services from the London termini, Marylebone, Paddington and Euston into the Birmingham termini, New Street and Moor street. The destination mix depends on the number of services offered in total. However, in this document There is no proposal to build a new station in Birmingham and the Chiltern line would have only the necessary investment to upgrade - not a new HSR line.

The White Paper offers no clarity on the service patterns and says no more than that a new station is to be built and all Birmingham HS services will go there. More work has to be done on this. It is far too vague. The ATKINS proposals offer concrete solutions and are compatible with the construction of the HSR2.

The public deserves a better thought out document.

High Speed Rail 2 - White Paper (2 - the London Termini)

The proposals put forward by the DfT for a high speed railine from London to Birmingham need to be looked at in detail. The entry/exit points to the two great conurbations leave at lot to be desired.


The DfT has decided that the London terminus for the high speed line to Birmingham is to be at Euston. The present 14 platforms would be increased with another 10 in a major redevelopment.


This would direct all the high speed services from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds into Euston.


The positive side to this, apart from the rights and wrongs of Euston expansion, is that there is a proposal to build a "people-mover" from Euston to St.Pancras/Kings Cross. We would argue that this is necessary whatever happens to Euston.
Even if the station stays the same size then a "people mover" (by which we understand to be a continuous walkway or horizontal escalator as is already used in large airport terminal buildings)would be essential to reduce demand on the underground/LUL for that one stop connection. The connection between the LUL Circle and Hammersmith LInes would also be helped and improved by a moving walkway from Euston LUL station to Euston Square.


However, the need for such an increase in the size of Euston is very questionable which we will look at in a moment.


The intermediate stop in London before Euston is proposed at Old Oak Common. There are various reasons for this.
(a) this is the entrance to the Crossrail tunnel under Central London to Liverpool St. and Whitechapel.
(b)This way Heathrow Express(HE) and Heathrow Connect(HC) trains can interchange with HSR2 trains without passengers having to go into Central London.
(c) There are direct connections with the "North Pole Depot" which is destined for Crossrail and/or HSR2 trains. This depot was previously but no longer used by Eurostar trains.
(d)this "off-central" station will satisfy the demand for connections to Heathrow and to the GWML.

In fact we dispute all these supositions
(a) why cannot we connect with Crossrail at Paddington itself without having an intermediate station? - meaning more lost time.
(b) Cannot HE and HC services connect with Heathrow from Paddington?
(c) If the "North Pole Depot" could be connected from Waterloo for the original Eurostar services, cannot it be connected to Paddington for the HSR2 services (and even in a better and shorter way).
(d) Paddington already satisfies the demand for conections to South Wales and the West without the need to construct an extra unnecessary time wasting expensive station in West London.

Let us look at certain facts as already presented to us by the DfT through the report from HSR2 Ltd..(High Speed Rail London to the West Midlands and Beyond HS2) Demand Model Analysis.
"Our model suggests a station at Heathrow would deliver the greatest demand for access to
Heathrow, with around 2,000 passengers per day using HS2 to access the airport for international flights. This means that even a station at Heathrow which is deliberately modelled to maximise the attractiveness for airport passengers would represent less than 2% of the traffic on HS2".

This, certainly, makes the case for a Heathrow Hub very tenuous to say the least. So what is the case for a NEW station in West London? basically it is non-existant. To use the present infrastructure is feasible, cheaper and more realistic.

One problem to be raised is "Are there enough platforms at Paddington?"
Abstracting the present Great Western Local services from Paddington and passing them directly to Crossrail would free up platforms at Paddington. Add to that the Heathrow Connect (HC) services (due to double to 4 per hour) plus the Heathrow Express services (HE) at 4 per hour then you can have enough services for Crossrail without cluttering up Paddington with local services - more than enough reason to make Paddington the London terminus for HSR2.

Obviously, it has to be said that since the GWML is to be electrified then the surburban services to Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Greenford would become feeder services for the main line stopping services as is the Windsor & Eton- Slough line at present.It is not feasible to electrify these branch lines for only 1 or 2 trains per hour. Thus a transfer on the main line to electric services would take place.

The present proposals for Crossrail: envisage 24 trains per hour (max.) in each direction through the centre section from Paddington out to both Shenbury(12) and Abbey Wood(12) in the east.The train paths are more complicated towards the west. 4 trains per hour will be Heathrow Connect (HC) services to the airport, 4 will be stopping trains to Maidenhead and 2 more will only go as far as West Drayton. This means that 14 tph will only go as far as Paddington - rather a waste of resources.There is talk of Crossrail being extended to Reading. If this were so then the Great Western local services are logically the ones to be substituted. This would mean that the local services which, at present, run into Paddington would terminate on the main line. Thus the connecting pattern would be (a)Henley-on-Thames to Twyford (b)Marlow to Maidenhead (c) Windsor and Eton Central to Slough - as at present (d)Greenford to West Ealing. This would abstract 4 trains per hour from Paddington. If you add the HE services and HC services to run through the Crossrail tunnels then we calculate that 6 platforms can be freed at Paddington for other services. The need for more stopping trains to Slough, Maidenhead and Reading would have to be ascertained.

The use of these freed platforms can be for new services to South Wales, the West and South West, or they can be used for services to Birmingham. Therefore, if you have a direct connection at Paddington to (a) Crossrail (b) the GWML (c) Heathrow airport and (d) the West Midlands, what is the need for an expensive, time wasting extra station in the west of London?? and why run the trains into Euston when Paddington could suffice??

However, if an expanded Euston contemplates 10 extra platforms would those 6 Paddington ones be sufficient? It all depends if you want to run HS trains just to Birmingham or further north as well. In fact it has been shown that by using both Paddington and Euston there could be enough platforms.

The most important report in this aspect is the ATKINS report to the DfT High Speed 2 Strategic Alternatives Study.
This is basically a "do minimum" strategy taking advantage of the present infrastructure or with minimal investment. There are five packages, each building on the previous one. They range from "tweaking" the timetable enabling a "shoe in" of more services, to substantial investment for the e.g.avoidance of line conflicts or more four tracking etc.. Packages three and four are probably the most interesting since they result in substantial improvement without excessively large investment. The probable train service pattern is also illustrated. The two points which interest us most in this article are the fact that the London - Birmingham services leave from Paddington while the expansion to Euston is limited to three extra platforms within the present station footprint.

In this model the Overground DC services from Watford still run into Euston. However, if the services were diverted either (a)from South Hampstead via Chalk Farm to Camden Road which would permit the trains to continue to Stratford or join the ELL at Highbury & Islington to south of the Thames, or(b) eliminate them as Overground services and make them Bakerloo Underground services. Abstracting these services from Euston would free up 2 more platforms for more regional and/or long-distance services.

The ATKINS document does not assume that HSR" will be built but only uses present resources. With HSR2 built through the Chilterns then the benefits would be far greater. The essential works would be to ensure the connection from Euston to the Chiltern line, through Old Oak but without a station there. The entry into the West Midlands is something else to look at which we will do in the next blog.

High Speed Rail 2 - White Paper (1)

Now that days have passed since the presentation of the White Paper by the Dept.for Transport for a high speed strategy we can look at it in a cooler fashion. Greengauge21, a strong pressure group, in favour of high speed rail, and Network Rail, who will probably end up being the owner of the tracks, both have given measured responses which are predictably very positive.


With the deluge of information and opinion since the presentation it has proved difficult to extract the wheat from the chaff. However, the proposal has good points and others which are not convincing. Generally speaking there are some interesting solutions to squaring the circle but a lot of questions are left up in the air. With the Dept.for Transport inundating the public with the White Paper, the HSR2 Ltd.´s recommendations, and the consultants´reports there is a tremendous amount of very detailed material to absorb.

In a few words let us say what the White Paper is not - it is not a high speed rail strategy. In that sense it is disappointing and the more it is looked at the more you can see there has been no strategic thinking but more of a political proposal to a growing demand. The Paper is a detailed plan to offer a high speed line from Central London to Central Birmingham. This is an achievement in itself and so welcome, but it is flawed. North of Birmingham we only have two lines drawn on a map - one to Manchester and the other to East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, both with no detail at all and with very vague promises to continue north to Scotland.

In fact it should be noted that it is rather contradictory to say that you cannot have intermediate stops on a high speed line as this would reduce its effectiveness (top speeds well below the capacity) while to Leeds(from Birmingham) two intermediate stops are being offered. This reads like a political sop to local interests.




Let us go back to basics and look at the population density map provided by the DfT. which gives us a easy picture to understand the problems.

All these plans can be seen in greater detail in the command paper (White Paper) published by the DfT 11th March 2010 dealing with HSR2. We publish them courtesy of the DfT.

Even though the communities smaller than 250,000 populace cannot be discerned easily on this map, one can see that the natural axis northwards are London-Leicester-Nottingham-Sheffield-Leeds, and London-Birmingham-North West England. So if the aim is to reduce present and predicted congestion on the WCML then the obvious solution is to follow these axis as we suggested in our blog FAST TRAX 3(18 Feb.´10) (points 1, 4 & 5)


The Chiltern High Speed route to Birmingham - which we call the CHSL - is the prefered route to the West Midlands. About that we have no objections but we do have strong objections to the termini and stoppings places en route. We also insist that our alternative of a high speed route to Manchester and Leeds by using the MML corridor is much better and very probably less expensive.

The White Paper itself is very dismissive of achievements already made which sounds like a self justifying argument for the high speed line.
"Further major upgrades to the existing network would be highly expensive, problematic and disruptive. The West Coast Route Modernisation project cost GBP8.9 billion and took almost a decade. It delivered fewer benefits than originally envisaged and caused serious disruption to travellers and to business at a significant economic and social price in addition to the cost of the project itself."
This is downright false when the line speed is limited to 125mph even though it is technically possible for speeds of up to 140mph(224kph) on certain stetches of the WCML which Virgin trains refuses to identify (we suspect it is along the newly four-tracked Trent Valley Line and shorter sections elsewhere). To quote the engineers "The route has brought numerous benefits to passengers with increased train services and reduced journey times".
At present with that speed limit the fastest time Euston-Glasgow is 4hrs.8mins. - a very respectable time. North West England is also much better served with most services non-stop from Warrington to Euston at 1hr.44mins. These are much improved times on the previous timetable.


We contend that with the points we laid down in FAST-TRAX - CONCLUSIONS (8th March points 1,2,3,4)the criterion are clear enough to satisfy the demand for high speed services in a satisfactory manner without digging up great swathes of the countryside. We have to emphasise that using the same corridor does not necessarily mean running tracks side by side. However, where it is possible to run tracks side by side or next to a motorway then the environmental impact is much less and thus should be made a major consideration.

On the route to Birmingham (CHSL) it has been designed for trains to run at 400kph (250mph) which is faster than any other line anywhere with the aim of being in a position of taking advantage of future improvements in technology. That is laudable but only really in a large country with great empty spaces - which is certainly not the case in Great Britain. A ninety degree turning circle, without slowing, means between 7.2 and 8 kms. to change direction. This is ludicrous - such that the line from London needs a new station called Birmingham Interchange some distance from Birmingham International Airport station to which it is meant to connect. This is ridiculous duplication and waste - the proposed station is not even on the west side of the M42. Approaching the West Midlands conurbation it is logical to reduce speed to stop at such a station so a lower line speed limit can be applied thus aiding the flexibility of the track layout to permit its entry into Birmingham International Airport station. The trains could then continue up to Lichfield as envisagedThe paper gives us to understand that trains into Birmingham and those onwards to places further north would all stop at the Interchange thus making this proposal realistic.


Of course what has been ignored is (a)the noise factor - the higher the speed the greater the noise, and (b) the power factor - the faster the speed the greater the need for electrical power. These points we looked at in our first blog FAST TRAX (13-2-10).


The points to be looked at in greater detail are concerning the two proposed termini at Euston and Birmingham Fazeley Street, and the intermediate station at Old Oak Common. These we will look at in the next blog.

Also what should not be ignored is the possible connection to HSR1. Here again the thinking is limited with the fixation of funnelling more and more traffic through London which would only lead to the creation of bottlenecks. We contend that our proposal for a southern high speed line alternative - Fast Trax 2 (24-2-10) running from Reading to Ashford through Heathrow and Gatwick is a much more beneficial solution offers more alternatives and satisfies the demand for long distance services from the airports. This would also override any demand for a Heathrow hub which, at present is only fraught with shallow thinking and awkward solutions.

To sum up the White Paper should turn Green and just lead to more discussion with more interesting and less entrenched positions to be considered. This is a major infrastructure project and cannot be permitted to be pushed through to satisfy the whims and ambitions of politicians (whatever colour) and engineers.