
A Look at HS2's Old Oak Common Station - fanf2
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2019/08/20/taking-a-look-at-hs2s-huge-old-oak-common-station/
======
Neil44
I don't like the soundbite about it only shaving X minutes off the trip to
Birmingham. That's practically the first stop. The thing goes all the way to
Leeds. It's a disingenuous soundbite. I realise the authour here is using it
as a construct to argue against but I head this soundbite a lot.

~~~
growlist
HSTs are cool, but I think it's a valid criticism - would it really make so
much difference to run at 125mph and the journey take a little longer? And
would the project be cheaper if it didn't need to be so super-straight in
order to be able to achieve the high speeds?

If they were proposing express trains that would really gain the benefit of
the line I could see the justification, but they're not are they?

~~~
jnty
Yes - the speed is required for capacity, to minimise journey times to
Scotland and ensure competitiveness with air travel and other existing links.
Even for closer destinations like Birmingham 35 minutes is a huge improvement
on a ~1h20m journey.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Firstly, there isn't all that much of anything in Birmingham that makes this
worthwhile. At best there might be some new business development in 10-20
years, but it's not at all obvious that Birmingham is somehow going to become
London's second business centre because of HS2.

Most of the claims in this piece are simply nonsense. The Euston to Crewe
train that's mentioned doesn't go anywhere near Birmingham, so it's not
obvious that HS2 would make much of a difference to traffic on it.

And even if it did, it's merely one of a large number of routes heading out of
London in all directions that are ridiculously overcrowded. At best, HS2 might
reduce a small proportion of that overcrowding, but it's certainly not going
to eliminate it.

The idea that HS2 can make Birmingham airport competitive with Heathrow for
Londoners is clearly wrong. Birmingham doesn't have the flights, the
destinations, or the capacity. London also has Heathrow Express for quick
train journeys from Paddington to Heathrow - concourse to concourse. Even with
a shorter journey time, HS2 can't match that.

And HS2 doesn't start to make sense until Phase 2 is built, linking Sheffield,
Manchester and Leeds. You might see some benefits then - but the realistic
total cost is likely to be the far side of £100bn. Which is madness.

It's actually five years of the total NASA budget, which is supposed to pay
for development of the next Lunar program, as well as everything else NASA
does.

It would be much better to spend a much smaller sum making the UK's broadband
the best in Europe, set up a world-leading incubator fund for digital startups
outside of London, with next-generation training and education, and try to
persuade existing corporates to consider home working options. The return on
that would be huge.

This is just a giant train set for rail nostalgists.

~~~
DanBC
> there isn't all that much of anything in Birmingham that makes this
> worthwhile.

The UK has a weird chicken and egg thing going on. Everything is in London
because everything is in London. HS2 is an attempt to break out of that. By
developing better rail links across England we allow companies to start moving
out of London.

> The idea that HS2 can make Birmingham airport competitive with Heathrow for
> Londoners is clearly wrong.

But that's not the aim. The aim is that we shouldn't have everyone in the
country using Heathrow for all journeys. Currently we have about 80 million
people going through Heathrow which is stupid if a chunk of them are only
using it to get into the UK.

London doesn't just have Heathrow and Gatwick. London has _six_ international
airports.

Heathrow alone at 80m people currently carries the equivalent of Manchester,
Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Bristol combined. We urgently need to fix
this.

~~~
growlist
> The UK has a weird chicken and egg thing going on. Everything is in London
> because everything is in London. HS2 is an attempt to break out of that.

One of the criticisms of HS2 is that it will just facilitate centralisation in
London, by helping people get there more quickly!

~~~
isostatic
It means that a business that needs to occasionally meet people face to face
in London can instead be based in Crewe, saving £10k a month in rent and
saving in salaries.

~~~
makomk
Now what happens when the business needs to meet someone face to face in say
Cambridge, home to a growing number of tech companies? Our current rail
network is so London-centric that the fastest way to do that from Crewe is to
go all the way south to central London, turn around, and head north again in
almost the same direction you came from. One of the big advantages of being
based in London is that you can get to nearly any major city in the country
quickly and directly by rail, and HS2 just strengthens that advantage.

~~~
isostatic
The expertise brown from HS2 needs to build Birmingham east to
Cambridge/Norwich, and south west to Bristol/Cardiff, as well as Liverpool-
Manchester-Leeds

------
michaelt
I've always wondered if the government could defray the cost of HS2 by buying
some blocks of cheap farmland in the middle of nowhere, adding a HS2 station
so the land was 20 minutes from central London, then selling the land to
property developers. Obviously you could only add one or two towns, to avoid
creating slow stopping services.

Seems to me that could increase the housing supply and offset the costs of HS2
at the same time - and most governments have had plans for new towns, new
garden cities and suchlike.

~~~
isostatic
Crossrail was funded by me and other tax payers. It's cost about £20b.

House prices near crossrail have risen an extra £133k each (above similar
houses in similar places that don't get crossrail).

That's somewhere in the region of £100b.

Crossrail is a massive transfer of wealth from working people to wealthy land
owners. It should have been funded entirely by a windfall levy on the increase
land value near the stations.

~~~
Reason077
> _" Crossrail was funded by me and other tax payers."_

A significant portion (over 30% of the original £17.8b budget) of Crossrail's
funding has actually come from land owners and businesses, in the form of:

\- Business rate supplements

\- Property developer contributions

\- Community infrastructure levy

\- Sale of surplus property along the route

\- Contributions from other non-taxpayer funded entities like Heathrow and the
City of London corporation

Much of the rest of the funding is from TfL and loans backed by the DfT, which
should eventually be payed back from ticket revenue.

~~~
crdoconnor
30% is not nearly enough. It's still a free lunch for property/landowners.

------
arethuza
"And as it’s going to last 200+ years, let’s do it properly."

And the day after this article was written the UK government announces a
review of HS2 - probably for rather short term political reasons:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-49420332](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49420332)

~~~
benj111
Remind me again how that fits in with the Brexit narrative? I thought we were
going to be standing tall, thrusting forward, open for business. Or does that
mean tall ships plying their trade in Boris Johnsons mind???

~~~
agent008t
Making Britain more attractive for business than the EU does not sound that
difficult, to be fair.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Apparently more difficult than making the UK less attractive for business -
which seems to be the current plan.

~~~
smcl
It's a cute remark and I certainly don't disagree that the government (hell,
even the _opposition_ ) are handling the situation horribly. But the sad
reality is that post-Brexit the UK government _is_ free to be more business
friendly. I say "sad reality" because this is not necessarily good for the
general public - we could see healthcare opened up to private US companies, we
could see workers rights eroded, reduced responsibilities for companies,
emissions standards relaxed, food standards relaxed ...

Tories whine about Brussels forcing all of this stuff onto the UK, they'll
gleefully strip it away at the first opportunity. It might turn out to be good
for business after all, but in the same way the Iraq war was.

~~~
jen20
One must remember that a direct quote from Boris Johnson, the (now) prime
minister was "Fuck Business". Leaving the EU is about avoiding scrutiny, not
stimulating business.

While it's true that the Tory party of old (charitably until ~2015) may have
cared about competitiveness for business, that party is now dead - overtaken
by the extreme right. The only thing that matters to them at this stage is
power, and personal enrichment, and they have become masters of disinformation
and confusion to ensure it -- a job made much easier by the generally awful
state of the press in the UK. It's a shame that the opposition are, as you
say, no better.

------
Catsandkites
As someone who spent a lot of time in London I hope he is correct about the
track capacity released for local trains once the intercity move to the new
lines.

Two stopping trains per hour between local stations is not enough and if any
were cancelled or delayed it created hell.

I left partly because the commute to work sometimes took 2.5 hours each way
and was ultimately draining. And that was living on the outskirts.

~~~
makomk
He's correct that there will be more track capacity. The question is whether
it'll be used if a significant chunk of passenger traffic ends up getting
moved to HS2. It might be that because the loss of traffic makes it less
economically viable to operate trains on the existing routes, some stations
actually end up getting served less frequently.

~~~
avianlyric
I don’t see how HS2 can move significant amounts of local traffic off local
lines.

It’s a high speed intercity line that only has a few stops (compared to a
local or commuter service). It can’t provide local services, it doesn’t have
the stations or the track to do so. It also won’t be high speed of it stopped
every 10miles.

~~~
stordoff
As I understand it, it's because there often aren't 'local lines' per se. For
instance, if you want to go from Doncaster to Retford (about a ten-fifteen
minute journey)[1], you're either on the East Coast Main Line (which runs
Edinburgh-London) or the Hull line (which runs Hull-London). The necessity to
runs express/intercity services on the same line reduces the ability to
schedule local services - a slow moving/frequently stopping local service
would block express trains.

It's less about moving local traffic off current lines, and more about freeing
them up to provide local services. You could potentially see something like
Bawtry station[2], which is between the two, brought back into service if
there is demand, whereas it might not currently make sense to do so as the
line's primary purpose is intercity travel.

[1] Not necessarily something that might be affected by HS2 - just a set of
stations I know as an example.

[2] Closed in 1959, but Wikipedia notes: "land near the station has been
protected should the site be required as a new station, with car parking
facilities, in the future as the town grows". The line initially went
Doncaster-Rossington-Bawtry-Scrooby-Ranskill-Barnby-Retford, but now only
Doncaster and Retford remain.

------
peteretep
Someone at HS2 PR needs to hire this man and then connect him to a subeditor

~~~
isostatic
Int he last few months HS2 has swung it's PR to emphasise the capacity --
although they still aren't giving concrete or even example figures of what
that means (12tph from Milton Keynes for example)

------
Theodores
If you have a 'tube level' map of London in your head it is not obvious why
HS2 goes through Old Oak Common. Euston is North and Paddington (which Old Oak
Common traditionally services) is West of the capital.

Some commentators in this post have questioned why the article is called what
it is when it is just about HS2. For me I think that the title is apt and I
now have so much more clarified. This is a really good article and I finally
understand and like the project. Before I didn't give a damn about it.

~~~
Tsiklon
The majority of stuff leaving Euston leaves on the West Coast Main Line. This
nearly touches the Great Western Main Line near Old Oak Common - with just
Kensal Green Cemetery separating the two. Having a large junction with GWML,
Crossrail and Overground traffic would appear to be very appealing when it
comes to giving additional choice to travellers.

As for not planning another exit route out of Euston, I'd imagine that there's
a significant planning headache in routing new tunnels around the existing
infrastructure in and around Euston, and that having the line shadow the
existing WCML is much less painful to both plan and develop.

Paddington has had a significant amount of work done to it recently with the
Crossrail work going into it. Though it doesn't appear to suffer the access
issues that Euston has it may prove to be a headache if HS2 traffic was
supposed to arrive alongside GWML traffic.

------
UglyToad
A good summary of the main points in favour of HS2 that almost no-one in
English media or politics is making.

This article, which is unfortunately now paywalled, covers a lot of the same
ground: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-
news/hs2-logistic...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-
news/hs2-logistics-financial-benefit-controversy-a8937936.html)

HS2 is one of those projects that's unpopular across the political spectrum
and unfortunately seems like it's under threat, but the arguments in this post
make a lot of sense and they're just not being made more broadly.

------
growlist
Great piece. But if our goal is increased capacity, perhaps HS2 isn't the best
way to do it - are there cheaper and slower alternatives? And if this is an
either/or decision, there are alternative proposals that are absolutely worth
of consideration - some scandalously poor situations up North for example. I
just can't help feeling this is yet another example of the public being
stitched up by their taxes being funnelled to a financial bonanza for the
politicians' chums.

~~~
jnty
Basically, no - upgrades to the existing rail network are exceedingly
expensive and disruptive (the whole East Coast Mainline is basically closing
this weekend because a single junction needs to be renewed.) HS2 provide lots
of fast intercity capacity meaning existing lines can be freed up for a
massive enhancement to local services. The high speed also helps reduce demand
for domestic air travel which is vital for combating the climate emergency.

This map shows where capacity will be unlocked:
[https://twitter.com/HS2ltd/status/1158403767756316672](https://twitter.com/HS2ltd/status/1158403767756316672)

And this comprehensively explains why more capacity is needed and a new high
speed railway is the solution: [https://medium.com/@garethdennis/high-speed-
two-and-the-need...](https://medium.com/@garethdennis/high-speed-two-and-the-
need-for-speed-91d8c68c5d80)

~~~
tempguy9999
As it stands I don't believe this. I'll happily accept that new tracks need to
be built, and to support higher speed, but going up to "400 km/h (250 mph)"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2))
seems pure dickwaving.

From your article "Yet the story doesn’t seem to be getting through. As
engineers, it is not just our duty to create new infrastructure, it is also
our duty to communicate its purpose. Helping the British public to get behind
High Speed 2 must be a priority for our industry if we are to truly make this
megaproject a success."

Translation: shut up and swallow, plebs.

I'd like to know what incremental cost there is for an increment of higher
speed - I bet I know the shape of that graph. If you want higher capacity, let
me know why longer trains don't work.

New line yes, gouging expense for national vanity, no.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_I 'd like to know what incremental cost there is for an increment of higher
speed_

So you are arguing against it when you don't know the cost?

~~~
tempguy9999
That's a good question. I don't know the cost but it is reasonable to suppose
that every extra 10% in speed adds >10% in cost, and that this cost increment
grows nonlinearly. So my objection is I think reasonable - or does it grow
linearly in your view?

However to be sure I'm not being unreasonabe I want to know what that curve is
- am I being unreasonable to ask for information given that I'm going to be
paying for HS2?

~~~
ucosty
That doesn't seem to be the case, if you look at the infrastructure cost
breakdowns the total construction cost for phase 1 is estimated at £6.6Bn,
with the remaining £9.6Bn going to things like project management, mitigation
costs, and land acquisition.

If you take a look at the construction costs, of the $6.6Bn only £665 are
going towards the rail and control systems. With all other items being largely
the same regardless of rail speed, I have a feeling (though I could be quite
wrong), that the cost difference between low and high speed is marginal.

Source:
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69741/hs2-cost-
and-risk-model-report.pdf)

~~~
tempguy9999
Thanks, I really appreciate you made the effort to find some actual stats, but
with respect, that doc is from march 2012. I don't know if the data is still
relevant now (though it may be).

We need some solid stats by an independent party which is why I'm happy one is
going to be looking into it.

FYI from that document, let me quote cos it's interesting: cost estimates in
march 2012:

2.9 Route package cost summaries

2.9.1 The phase one total cost estimate is £16.3 billion within a cost range
of £15.4 billion to £17.3 billion. [...]

2.9.2 The phase two total cost estimate is £17.1 billion within a cost range
of £15.7 billion to £18.7 billion. [...]

2.9.3 The full Y network cost estimate is £33.4 billion within a cost range of
£30.9 billion to £36.0 billion. [...]

~~~
willyt
Construction costs haven’t changed all that much since then. A significant
proportion of the costs are in project management and contractual arrangements
designed to shift risk away from politicians and managers. If you look at
costs in France, we are about 5-10 times more expensive for a route of
equivalent complexity. French digger drivers don’t earn 5x less and materials
are not 5x cheaper in France, if they were French would be the language of
building sites in Britain. So the costs must be coming from somewhere else;
land acquisition, risk management and over complicated contracting and project
management processes are my bet, based on my experience of working on large
construction projects in the UK and Europe.

------
agent008t
My concern is that it will cost a lot of money but ultimately not deliver a
reliable, fast, comfortable service. For some reasons Brits seem incapable of
delivering great railway services. The Calendonian Express fiasco is just the
latest example - an amazing idea that could have been absolutely fantastic,
completely ruined by the awful implementation.

As a taxpayer, I would much rather the work was contracted out to the Japanese
that built the Shinkansen services. But for some strange reason that seems
politically unpopular.

~~~
tobylane
It will be reliable and fast because it's on its own tracks. It'll be
comfortable because those tracks are new, and the high ticket price requires
decent seats. I'm surprised by your concerns. Try out HS1.

Like with Hinckley and various other grand projects I'd rather we taught
ourselves how to do it. Only HS2a has passed into law, b&c, HS3 and Crossrail2
are still to come.

~~~
agent008t
1\. Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the
tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems?

2\. The Caledonian Express also has high ticket prices, yet the service is
completely shambolic.

~~~
pjc50
> Are constant delays and signal failures on existing tracks because the
> tracks are old, and so new tracks would not have these problems?

Yes. This is also why the Tube and the NYC metro have such big problems
compared to more recently built systems.

------
mothsonasloth
As a Scot, I am skeptical how HS2 is going to improve the Edinburgh and
Glasgow lines to London. Considering they don't go via Birmingham (they go
Warrington, Stoke, Milton Keynes)

~~~
pmyteh
The west coast HS2 route threads between Birmingham and the existing West
Coast Main Line, with a branch to Birmingham and a branch to join up with the
WCML at (IIRC) around Crewe. It's a little less direct than the existing
route, but engineered a lot faster.

The other dirty not-quite-secret about HS2 is that it's not mainly about high
speed. The WCML is full to bursting in some sections, and putting freight,
long distance passenger, and stopping trains on the same tracks reduces
capacity further. So it's mostly about building a new line. And once you're
doing that, it makes sense to make it high speed and passenger only.

------
Animats
Aw, high speed rail to Birmingham.

"Let's go to Birmingham".[1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPzB0qTy4M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPzB0qTy4M)

------
philpem
Can't see why this has hit the front page. It's not really a look at Old Oak
Common so much as a long spiel about why HS2 is Gonna Be Great (tm).

~~~
arethuza
Because people voted for it as it is quite interesting?

~~~
vidarh
And likely because it's hit during the morning in the UK and there's just been
articles about a review of HS2 potentially putting it at risk due to large
cost overruns.

~~~
philpem
I was thinking more along the lines that I was expecting something about the
station itself, engineering challenges and so forth -- not a thinly-veiled
puff piece for HS2.

------
stewdellow
I really wish the powers-at-be would look at Hyperloop as a serious
alternative to HS2. While it seems so futuristic it's well within our
technological abilities, just seems to be health and safety / legislature
restrictions.

Potentially far cheaper to build and maintain, modern, environmentally better
and quicker amongst a host of other benefits and would help make Britain a
global leader in transportation.

The Danny in the Valley podcast episode with Dirk Ahlborn was eye opening on
the potential benefits and briefly mentions HS2 and Crossrail along with the
current SF to LA High Speed rail project.

~~~
alexisread
The best transport option might be smartrail (similar to
[http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2011/11/climbing-
chain.html](http://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/2011/11/climbing-chain.html) but
steel wheel/LIM and faster).

Smartrail and PRT are designed as a point to point separated-grade network
carrying on av. 1 person or a pallette of goods. With a hanging rail you don't
need heavy batteries, parking for the vehicles, you can run a pod straight
into the factory to pickup goods, and large/rich places can pay to have track
straight to their door.

You can prefab the rail and as land usage is just poles in the ground it can
be rolled out over fields etc quickly. Track is one-way to eliminate
junctions. Pods are on-demand ie. No waiting.

Accessibility improves, you can use the top of the rail to generate (solar)
power, run highspeed internet cables in the rail to improve comms across a
country, and save on distribution center logistics as you're going point to
point.

The last mile may possibly be an issue, but forklift drones and bicycles can
take most of the load I feel.

Drivers for this are that it would go fast (200mph+ as light pods so little
wear), can go overnight (sleeper pods), you could buy track to your door,
personal transport (like a cinema room if you want). The main real issue with
cars is that there's a large lobby behind what is a legacy transport
solution...

By way of example, UltraPRT has been running flawlessly at Heathrow airport
for 10 years, was built on time, on budget, and performs exactly as
predicted/modelled.

For more info checkout
[http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/](http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/)
in particular Swedetrack
([https://web.archive.org/web/20060202013014/http://www.swedet...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060202013014/http://www.swedetrack.com/))

