After HS2 Phase 2A – what next?

After the untimely demise of HS2 Phase 2A in a Manchester hotel room, at the behest of shady think tanks and shadowy advisers, the mayors of Birmingham and Manchester are doing their best to minimise the damage and find a way of increasing capacity and reducing journey times between their cities. Options appear to be ‘upgrades’ (whatever that means), a short bypass of the worst bottlenecks, or a low speed version of Phase 2A on the route already determined by Act of Parliament. Meanwhile Rail Minister Huw Merriman still relies on ‘digital signalling’ (whatever that means) as an excuse for baking in a capacity constraint on the UK’s key freight and passenger trunk route.

No doubt consultants are working on all of these options on behalf of the mayors, but what can we say meanwhile? Key issues apart from cost are:

  • Capacity, first and foremost;
  • Journey time benefits, to make a business case;
  • Timescales, reflecting availability of powers and design as well as simply time to build;
  • Operating feasibility, including on the conventional railway;
  • Disruption to existing rail services during the work.

‘Upgrades’ of the existing railway

The way the word ‘upgrade’ is flashed around, anyone would think ‘upgrading’ a railway is just a matter of downloading a new version off the internet! In this case it would be a major project in its own right. It has been suggested that quadrupling through Shugborough tunnel would increase capacity on this critical section of the WCML. It’s not so simple though!

Although there are four tracks each side of the Shugborough bottleneck, they are configured differently, so you can’t just run one into the other. South of Colwich, the four tracks are ‘paired by direction’, that is, Up-Up-Down-Down, with the Fast lines in the middle. This is appropriate to a route such as the Trent Valley, where the need is to allow Fast line trains to dive off and stop at a couple of stations with platforms on the Slow lines, before regaining the Fast lines.

But North of Shugborough, the tracks are ‘paired by use’, that is, Up-Down-Up-Down, with the Fast lines to the East and Slow lines to the West. This is appropriate where branches, feeding trains predominantly to the Slow lines, blend in or out from and to the West, as at Stafford and Crewe.

So each configuration is right for its own railway, but to link the two needs a flyover – vide Wimbledon. And if its going to be used by either freight trains or fast passenger trains, it’s going to be a BIG flyover. The place for such a flyover is probably between Rugeley station and Colwich, as the Fast lines could then throw off a branch to the East to feed the route to Manchester via Stoke on Trent.

The way the word ‘upgrade’ is flashed around, anyone would think ‘upgrading’ a railway is just a matter of downloading a new version off the internet!

That’s on top of the direct problems involved in quadrupling through Shugborough tunnel. The tunnel itself was built to preserve the view from Shugborough Hall, and the extra tracks would take land from the National Trust’s Shugborough Estate. Good luck with that!

It’s not as if the existing alignment is very good in the first place. The line twists and turns to follow the River Sow, with only 90mph through Shugborough Tunnel and sections as low as 75mph even on the Fast lines.

Even these suggested work items are major tasks implying disruption to services, on a route for which there is no reasonable diversion available for the Phase 1 level of service. By stopping short of Crewe, the operational difficulties inherent in the current layout there would persist.

Compulsory purchase powers would be required for land outside the boundary of the existing railway. This includes the National Trust Shugborough Estate.

After all that, although some extra capacity is offered, albeit limited by flat junctions at Stafford and Crewe, there are no journey time benefits, without which making a conventional business case will be impossible.

Verdict: Forget it.

‘Stafford bypass’

In planning for the WCML Upgrade completed in 2010, a ‘Stafford Bypass’ was proposed. This would have commenced immediately north of Rugeley Trent Valley station, where a length of straight track would have allowed slewing of the Up Slow and Up Fast to create an island between the Fast Lines. The bypass started in this island, grade separated over the slewed Up lines. It then passed north of Great Haywood, exactly where Phase 2a was proposed, then over the A51, over the Colwich to Hixon line, and over the Trent.  It then went through Ingestre Golf course, and just south of the village of Hopton, just like 2a. It then deviated from 2a, and headed towards the north of Norton Bridge, crossing the A34 and M6, before connecting to the WCML Fast lines near Coldmeece.

By stopping short of Crewe, the operational difficulties inherent in the current layout there would persist.

Compulsory purchase powers would be required for land beyond that already acquired for Phase 2A.

By stopping short of Crewe, the operational difficulties inherent in the current layout there would persist.

Capacity would be addressed, but only minimal journey time savings were expected, given conventional speed connections at each end, so that achieving a business case would be unlikely.

Verdict: Useful as a ‘do minimum’ case, but unlikely to form the most favourable option.

‘Digital signalling’

This phrase is often used to refer to ETCS Level 2 as now being installed on the East Coast Main Line.

The principal effect of ETCS Level 2 relevant to capacity is reduction of the technical headway, that is, the minimum interval between consecutive trains that just allows trains to run at their full speed, without braking to preserve safe separation. However, the technical headway on plain line at full speed is rarely if ever the binding constraint on capacity of a rail route.

The benefit of ‘digital signalling’ for reduced cost of renewals is valid, but capacity constraints are not addressed in this case, nor any journey time savings offered.

On the Handsacre – Crewe section of the West Coast Main Line, the principal determinant of capacity will be:

  • The difference in speed between different trains, which leads to a ‘wedge’ of unusable capacity as a fast train draws ahead of a slower train;
  • Conflicts at flat junctions such as Colwich, Whitehouse and Stafford.

The benefit of ‘digital signalling’ for reduced cost of renewals is valid, but capacity constraints are not addressed in this case, nor any journey time savings offered.

Verdict: There are reasons for adopting ‘digital signalling’, but this isn’t one of them.

Phase 2A but at lower speed

At least this option could be pursued within existing land purchase powers. Exploiting these powers however rules out most opportunities, such as they are, to adopt a cheaper alignment. If anyone thinks those opportunities are material, they will have to accept extended timescales so as to gain powers to purchase relatively small amounts of land.

Any change from design work already done for Phase 2A, even within existing powers, will incur new design costs.

As the new railway would extend to Crewe, the opportunity exists to resolve the bulk of the operational difficulty there, by connecting directly into the Fast lines through the station, and so avoiding the transition between ‘paired by use’ and ‘paired by direction’ that makes life difficult there now. Although initial work assumed a connection into the Slow lines, this derived from an over-literal interpretation of a requirement that trains ‘should be able to access’ the Slow lines – of course they must if they are to stop in the station, but that means having a couple more crossovers, not a direct connection constraining the majority of trains. More recent work recognised this and a connection to the Fast lines was the basis of planning before Phase 2A was dropped.

Any change from design work already done for Phase 2A, even within existing powers, will incur new design costs.

Given the Fast line connection at Crewe, capacity is addressed as well as Phase 2A would have done, but journey time savings are of course reduced. Even at 140 mph, savings over today’s times would probably not reach 10 minutes, compared with the 15 minutes offered by the original Phase 2A. That may sound trivial but isn’t! An outstanding characteristic of the Phase 2A system was that as a railway it worked very well indeed. It is simply a fact that Phase 2A running times had very useful effects, such as terminal turnrounds that were adequate but not excessive, and parallel moves at key junctions such as Crewe North. This may be ‘train planners’ luck’, but the skill in train planning is recognising when luck is with you and using it, rather than working against it. Reducing the speed risks infringing minimum turnrounds, which means more rolling stock and crew as well as possibly new capacity at Network Rail stations, and making pathing on the conventional railway more difficult.

Verdict: The closest to ‘shovel ready’, but exploiting the theoretical advantage of lower speed jeopardises that, as well as adding to operating costs and complexity. Is it worth it, compared with the authorised Phase 2A? ‘Not Proven’!

Conclusion

Change the name if you must, but don’t change the scheme!