Written evidence from I D King (HSR 05)
1. REASON
1.1 As a former Area Manager for British Rail
at both Birmingham and Manchester I have followed the various
arguments put forward both for and against linking these two cities
with London by High Speed Rail (HS2). There are however some basic
facts from a purely "railway" point of view that could
perhaps be considered and these are:
2. TIMING
2.1 Comparisons have been made between the forecast
journey time and that of the proposed high speed service. However
the trains on the West Coast line, the Chase 390 or "Pendolino",
were built to run at 140 mph. They are restricted to 125 mph due
to the proposed parallel requirement of the line's signalling
system to allow 140 mph running being aborted. The coast of resignalling
the line would be small change compared with that of building
a new railway. At 140 mph the time difference would come to less
than at 125 mph.
2.2 Resignalling the route would benefit every
point between London and Glasgow. Conversely with HS2, towns and
cities such as Coventry, Wolverhampton and Stoke on Trent which
achieve their level of service by being part of the Birmingham
and Manchester services would see a reduction in quality.
2.3 The "tipping point" in creating
demand between rail and air is always considered to be three hours
and the present service is within that time band. Many passengers
flying from Manchester to London are transfer or code-sharing
who would be unlikely to change their mode of transport.
2.4 Lord Adonis has often quoted Lyon to Paris
as an example of the effect High Speed Rail can have on the transfer
of passengers from air to rail. This is not a valid comparison
as prior to the TGV fast service the fastest train—the Trans
Europe Express Le Lyonnais—took three hours 50 minutes and
the normal train service was over four hours. A more valid comparison,
Lille to Paris, where the journey of just over two hours was reduced
to one hour the increase in usage was reported as only five per
cent due in part to a regular hourly service being introduced.
2.5 The introduction of Eurostar services between
London and Paris had a large effect on air travel demand but the
reduction of the journey time of three hours with the opening
of the High Speed Line HS1 did not, with the figures in the Financial
Times showing London to Paris remaining the eleventh most popular
in the World with around 1,061,000 passengers annually.
3. ACCESS
3.1 Only a small proportion of passengers live
in the centres of Birmingham or Manchester. HS2 will worsen access
to London services to those changing platforms at Birmingham New
Street or using Wilmslow or Macclesfield stations from the residential
areas South of Manchester.
4. CAPACITY
4.1 It is far from clear how the figures for
future demand levels have been calculated. However most of the
stations on the line were built when fifteen coach trains were
the norm and a sizeable increase in capacity can be obtained by
lengthening the short trains running at present. Euston was designed
so that the platforms can be extended Southwards which is why
the escalator head to the Underground is position to the rear
of the short suburban platforms rather than the more convenient
East side as was originally proposed in London Transport.
5. CONTINENTAL
CONNECTIONS
5.1 Some of the comments linking HS2 to HS1 and
the Channel Tunnel appear to envisage frequent services to mainland
Europe. There are limited "paths" through the Tunnel
for High Speed services many being already used by Eurostar apart
from the proposed additional services operated by the German Railway
Company.
6. EFFECTS ON
THE NETWORK
6.1 Large expenditure on the construction and
maintenance of HS2 is bound to effect expenditure on the rest
of the system. There are lessons to be learnt from France where
the traditional network has suffered due to the cost of the LGV
or High Speed line. In about April 2008 the Cour des Comptes,
the Government Audit Office, issued an extremely critical report
saying that 46 per cent of the traditional network was in urgent
need of upgrading and trains were being forced to travel at low
speeds due to the state of the track.
April 2011
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