Friday 13 September 2013

HS2 'heart bypass' will sideline key cities

In a speech on 11 September, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin described HS2 as “a heart bypass for the clogged arteries of our transport system”.

That’s an interesting choice of metaphor. In a heart bypass, arteries from elsewhere in the body are grafted onto the clogged coronary arteries. They provide a diversionary route for the blood, enabling it to bypass the blockages and flow freely from the heart to the vital organs of the body.

In one way, it is a good description of HS2. Trains will travel smoothly from London to Birmingham and Manchester on the new high-speed line, avoiding the “clogged arteries” of the West Coast Main Line.

Where the analogy comes a bit unstuck is with the blockages. Instead of lumps of athersclerotic plaque along its length, the West Coast Main Line has railway stations.

Running trains between London, Birmingham and Manchester on the new HS2 line instead of the West Coast Main Line may certainly suggest a bypass, but what it will bypass are the towns and cities that are currently served en route. To follow McLoughlin’s analogy, those towns have the misfortune to be located in the detritus-strewn diseased artery, not in its replacement.

The new HS2 line between London and Birmingham will bypass Milton Keynes and Coventry (towns served today by Virgin’s London-Birmingham service). Nor will the HS2 line to Manchester pass through Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Wilmslow and Stockport, at present served by Virgin’s London-Manchester trains. All these towns will indeed be bypassed.

A key point that many commentators have missed is that today’s intercity rail timetable will not be maintained in parallel with the new HS2 services. Government ministers have made it clear that once HS2 opens, most north-south long-distance rail services will be provided by HS2. One of the main planks of the Government’s case for HS2 is that once the West Coast Main Line has been freed of most of its intercity services, there will be space on the line for additional commuter and regional services. Additional capacity, the current favourite reason for HS2.


Table showing current and future patterns of service between London and Manchester
Rail services between London and Manchester. On the left are the services currently operating during a period of one hour. On the right is HS2 Ltd's proposed service pattern after HS2 opens.
The above diagram shows the current hourly pattern of intercity trains between London and Manchester and HS2 Ltd’s proposed service patterns after HS2 opens. There are currently three trains per hour between the two cities, operated today by Virgin Trains. HS2 Ltd proposes that these services be replaced by three HS2 services and just one West Coast intercity service per hour – leaving Stoke, Stockport and Wilmslow with fewer services to London (a 50% reduction for Stoke, 66% cut for Stockport and 100% cut for Wilmslow).

Our recent blog post on HS2 and the north-south divide revealed details of all of the towns and cities which are predicted by HS2 Ltd to face cuts to their intercity services to London. I suspect those places might not be so keen on the “HS2 as heart bypass” analogy. The West Coast Main Line might be less congested once intercity trains use HS2 instead, but, for cities like Stoke, HS2’s new artery is likely to take most of the lifeblood too.

Of course the point about a heart bypass is that it is usually required pretty soon after diagnosis of the dire condition, yet HS2 won’t be completed until 2033. If, as Patrick McLoughlin suggests, our rail network is already “clogged”, we surely need to find a solution that can be applied quickly, not leave that vital organ on life support for 20 years. Not a bypass, but a simple, affordable coronary stent, perhaps.

Sunday 1 September 2013

HS2 and the Wilmslow boy

It is ironic that George Osborne is taking on the role of cheerleader for the HS2 scheme. The HS2 route may curve around the wealthiest part of his Tatton constituency (the ‘Osborne bend’ as some have dubbed it), but HS2 looks set to bring a worse problem to his constituents - the axing of Wilmslow’s direct rail service to London.

Wilmslow, one of the principal towns in Mr. Osborne’s constituency, currently receives one train to London per hour.  But under plans set out by HS2 Ltd and Network Rail, it will lose its direct connection to London altogether.

Ministers now say that one of the key aims of HS2 is to free-up space on existing rail lines for extra commuter services.  As I pointed out in my last post, adding extra commuter services to the West Coast Main Line cannot be achieved without reducing existing long-distance services, and this is exactly what is proposed by HS2 Ltd and Network Rail.

The argument is that, when Manchester passengers are served by HS2 trains, most of the ‘ordinary’ intercity services between Manchester and London (currently operated by Virgin Trains) can be axed - and the spare line capacity used to run new commuter services.

There are currently three Virgin trains per hour from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, with the following calling patterns:

xx.00  London Euston - Stoke-on-Trent – Macclesfield – Stockport - Manchester Piccadilly

xx.20  London Euston – Milton Keynes - Stoke-on-Trent – Stockport - Manchester Piccadilly

xx.40  London Euston – Crewe – Wilmslow – Stockport - Manchester Piccadilly

When the HS2 line is constructed to Manchester, three HS2 services per hour are predicted to run between London and Manchester. However, these will not call at (or indeed pass through) any of the intermediate stations listed above.

HS2 Ltd’s document giving indicative service patterns for existing services once HS2 is built shows two of the three ‘traditional’ London-Manchester intercity services being axed – the surviving service being the train calling at Stoke-on-Trent – Macclesfield – Stockport - Manchester Piccadilly.

Axing the other two London-Manchester intercity services per hour will mean that Stoke-on-Trent's services to London are halved in number, and Wilmslow left with no direct service to London.

Network Rail goes even further.  In a recent document setting out how services could be re-organised on the existing lines once HS2 is completed, it suggests that all rail services between London and Manchester could travel on the new high-speed line and thus bypass all the intermediate towns – leaving passengers in those towns, including Stoke and Wilmslow, to travel to their nearest HS2 station and change there.  This 'hub and spoke' model is shown in Network Rail's diagram: