Will Crossrail Overload The Docklands Light Railway?
After my visit to the new Canary Wharf Crossrail station on Saturday, I got thinking about the effect of the new line on the Docklands Light Railway.
A walkway will take passengers direct from Crossrail to Poplar station on the DLR. So would commuters from Essex and Kent going to the Bank area of the City, change at Canary Wharf for the DLR?
Only real figures, when Crossrail opens in a few years time, will give the answer.
I do think though that in a few years we’ll be talking about extending the DLR from Bank towards the west. These plans are discussed here in Wikipedia, but nothing has been firmed up yet. I suspect that if anything does get built it will be the link from Bank to Euston and St. Pancras, as this will open up a new route from Canary Wharf to the train lines to the north. But the uncertainty over HS2 doesn’t help in making this decision.
A Response To HS2 Sceptics
Alistair Darling and others are right to question the current proposal for HS2.
I have a lot of experience of the history and implementation of large infrastructure projects, as many were built with the help of project management software that I created.
Many of these projects get built in a form, that is very different to first envisaged and in some cases, as with the London end of HS1, they get built twice due to the mistakes and lack of vision of politicians.
Looking at the rail system in the UK, there are some major problems that must be addressed on routes from London and the South East to the North and Scotland.
Some stations like Leeds and Birmingham have been or are being rebuilt to a modern standard, but Euston and Manchester Piccadilly are in urgent need of serious improvement, as they both suffer from severe 1960s short-termism.
Most freight now arrives in the UK through the South East ports and there are no fully-electrified routes to the Midlands and the North. We’ve even worsened this situation by building the new London Gateway superport in East London, which means heavy freight trains must mix it with the London Overground.
North of Warrington and Darlington on the West Coast and East Coast Main Lines, there is a serious lack of capacity.
There are serious bottlenecks on the main routes like the Welwyn viaduct and various crossings and stations could be improved.
As Alistair Darling indicated in his article, politicians haven’t decided on what to do with Heathrow. Anybody who called themselves a project manager would say that is the first decision you must do, as it effectively defines the southern route of HS2.
I believe that the first thing we should do after deciding about the airport, is rectify the mistakes of the Victorians and their successors, and convert the East and West Coast Main Lines into continuous quadruple-tracked railways from London to Scotland. If this was accompanied by modern in-cab signalling and overhead wiring, it would be possible with the existing trains to run services at 225 kph. This could mean that London to both Edinburgh and Glasgow would be under four hours.
This high-speed ladder, would be matched by two or three electrified cross routes like Liverpool to Hull, Manchester to Sheffield and Peterborough To Nuneaton. These would not only provide more passenger capacity, but the last route would help to alleviate the freight problem, by taking all Felixstowe traffic to and from the Midlands.
Hitachi are building a factory to make new 225 kph trains at Newton Aycliffe for the East Coast Main and Great Western Main Lines. Surely, for reasons of economy of scale, these designs should also be deployed on the East Midland Main Line and the East-West routes. We must finally rid ourselves of British Rail’s different train for each route policy.
Obviously, better stations are needed, with Manchester Piccadilly and Euston at the head of the list. Perhaps these new stations could interface a lot better with the local bus routes, which is a particular failing of Piccadilly and many other important stations.
And finally, if more capacity is proven to be needed between London and Birmingham, why not electrify the Chiltern Route from Marylebone? And of course, run new Hitachi trains on the line!
the one thing we should actually do with HS2 is safeguard the route, for when it is eventually needed.
We need more capacity and faster journeys in the near future and not on some vague whim and date conjured from the air by politicians, who want to get elected in 2015.
Do We Need A Rolling HS2?
The report today by the think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, which says that HS2 will cost a lot more than is currently budgetted for. It’s all reported here on the BBC.
They make a lot of good points in the report.
Extra infrastructure such as trams and trains, will be needed to link other areas to the route.
Extra tunnels and other infrastructure will be needed to buy off the opposition.
The BBC summarises it like this.
The report said HS2 “and the add-on transport schemes will be heavily loss-making in commercial terms – hence the requirement for massive taxpayer support”.
As someone, who is very familiar with project management, I’ve always felt that the logic of HS2 and the way it is being implemented could and will be improved.
If we look at the current rail network, it has problems that will eventually be solved or helped by HS2.
Euston station is not fit for purpose and should be redeveloped and/or relieved. I favour a second terminus of the West Coast Main Line at Old Oak Common, as I mused here.
There are very severe capacity problems on the northern part of the West Coast Min Line between Wigan and Glasgow. This is not part of the current HS2, so perhaps it should be done to make sure the Scots get their connections to the South improved.
The East Coast Main Line to Leeds and Newcastle, has a notorious bottleneck at the Digswell Viaduct and according to this report on the BBC web site, it could be removed for under half a billion.
One problem that HS2 doesn’t solve is the bad connections across the north of England from Liverpool to Leeds and Hull. This BBC report includes an estimate of a billion plus.
So should we just define the route for HS2 and then break it into a series of manageable projects, that are implemented over the years.
We might design large stretches for say 300 kph, but most of the upgraded network would have limits of around 200 to 250 kph. Effectively large sections of the East and West Coast Main Lines can now handle 225 kph and just need resignalling.
The new Class 800 and Class 801 trains will be built to a design speed of 225 kph.
In some ways these trains may be the key to the whole of the expansion of high-speed services. I suspect, we’ll see them on London to Sheffield and Norwich for a start.
How Not To Plan A High Speed Railway
The farce that is Fyra might have got a bit better as there are now going to be some extra Thalys trains on the line soon, as is reported here.
But this will only partially compensate for the loss of the Fyra V250 trains and capacity will be nowhere near that needed.
It will also do nothing to get round one of the major design faults of the line; the lack of a branch to the Dutch capital, The Hague. A city incidentally, which doesn’t have an airport well-connected to the city centre, unless you count Schipol.
In some ways the design of the line, would be like the UK, creating a high speed line to Scotland, that bypassed Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
The Dutch also have a problem in that their tracks aren’t to the European standard of trains on the left, electrified to 25,000 volts AC, so it makes it difficult for high speed trains to run on secondary lines, as they do in most other European countries, The suburban Class 395 run in rural Kent and on HS1. Like the Thalys, they have a multi-voltage capability.
Another problem is that there aren’t enough Thalys trains and you can’t just rustle up some new ones quickly. In fact I suspect there is a large shortage of rolling stock across Europe and I suppose the real problem, is that because every country seems to work to different standards and local politics, manufacturers rely too much on living on the scraps politicians give them. So say if we need say some extra stock on the East Coast Main Line, we can’t generally borrow from the Germans. Saying that though, but for a few years Regional Eurostar trains did run to Leeds. But then that train was designed to run in the UK, France and Belgium.
We also complain in this country about orders for trains going to foreign manufacturers, but this is a Europe wide problem.
What we need is standards for railways that apply across most of Europe. When you have travelled on trains as much as I have you realise what a disconnected design it all is.
Some Sense On HS2
There is a report on the BBC, which says that a new station could be built at Old Oak Common to link HS2 and Crossrail. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
Views are being sought on plans for a High Speed 2 and Crossrail station in west London, as part of a scheme it is claimed could create up to 90,000 jobs.
Greater London Authority is consulting residents on the plan for Old Oak, which it says will generate jobs and see thousands of homes built.
I think it’s a good idea and I suspect many others will too, especially, as it will allow the creation of lots of much needed new homes and jobs in the capital.
Other points include.
- This station would take the pressure off Euston as many passengers coming from or going to the North on HS2 would probably prefer to change to Crossrail for the London end of their journey.
- Would less traffic through Euston mean that the need to rebuild Euston station and its dreadful connections to the Underground, could be sensibly delayed?
- If there is less pressure on Euston, the need for Crossrail 2 is probably less.
- It creates a one change connection between the North and Heathrow Airport.
- If a Thames Estuary Airport is built, then I suspect that would be linked to Crossrail, so that is just one change too.
- This plan creates a link between large areas of West London to long distance rail services, especially if the West London and North London lines were to be improved.
But it does show even more that we need some holistic planning, which sorts out London, its railways and airports for the next thirty years or so.
If you look at the area on a map, you will find that the area is served by several railway lines at present including the Great Western Main Line, the West Coast Main Line, the London Overground and even the Central and Bakerloo Lines of the London Underground. There would also appear to be large areas of industrial land, that would probably be ripe for development.
An Impressive Argument For A Thames Estuary Airport
I’ve just read this article in Airport World, which makes an impressive argument for a new four-runway London Airport in the Thames Estuary.
It just strengthens my belief that before we decide on the route of HS2, we must first decide what we are doing to create more runway capacity in the South East.
Putting The Cart Before The Horse
The Standard is reporting tonight, that Lord Mandelson has changed his mind over the building of HS2. Here’s a flavour.
In an extraordinary public U-turn, he confessed the costings were “almost entirely speculative” when Gordon Brown’s Cabinet backed the idea.
Ministers wanted a “bold commitment to modernisation” after the financial crash, he said, and ignored the potential risks of what now looked like “an expensive mistake”.
But then as Gordon Brown didn’t have the financial acumen to run a whelk stall, what do you expect?
I’ve always been slightly cynical about HS2 and feel if it ever gets built, it won’t be as is now envisaged.
But one thought struck me, as I read the article and it gave rise to the title of this post.
My background is in Project Management, which is all about getting things build the right way and in the correct order. Judging by all the arguments about how Heathrow Airport will link in to HS2, it struck me as strange that we are deciding the route of HS2 before we decide if we’re going to build a new airport for London.
Look at any option, with the possible exception of a third runway at Heathrow and we’ll have to revamp the railways around London, to create links to the North.
Strangely in a few years time, when the Midland Main Line is electrified, Sheffield will have the best links to a London airport, of any northern city. I suspect they’ll be running trains from Sheffield to Brighton, which of course will stop at Gatwick.
That just shows how well politicians plan transport networks.
They haven’t really done anything to solve the North-South problems we currently have and what will happen to construction methods in the near future.
HS2 is initially planned to go from London to Birmingham, but that route has one high speed 200 kph line and a convenient slower one. As I found last week, when I went to Birmingham, it’s a good service and a lot of the problems are on their way to being solved. I wonder what amount of traffic, an upgraded and electrified Chiltern Main Line could carry, thus delaying the need for HS2 to Birmingham!
But go North from Birmingham to Manchester, Liverpool and ultimately Scotland and there is a real lack of capacity. Admittedly, Virgin’s lengthened trains and a few new ones will help, but that line will probably be the first part of the West Coast Main Line to get totally overloaded.
So perhaps we should build it from North to South as some have proposed.
A very real problem is the cess-pit at the London end of the line; Euston. It was built on the cheap in the 1960s and needs a complete rebuild. Rebuilding Euston and building HS2 at the same time, would be a recipe for disaster.
And then there’s the problem of freight capacity, which is going to get worse, as some idiot decided to build the UK’s largest container port at London Gateway, in a place which is difficult to get to by rail,as most trains will have to fight their way through London. You could argue that the proposal to run freight trains on the old Grand Central Line by a company called Central Railway, should have been built as a freight spine first.
Building this line, would probably have taken a lot of the freight off the West Coast Main Line, so giving us the extra passenger capacity we need, at least as far as Manchester and Liverpool for a few years.
As with many things in Project Management, you don’t let politicians be involved in the design or choose the order you do something!
I always remember the building of the Lewisham Extension of the Docklands Light Railway. The contractors were told it had to link various holes in the ground and cost under a certain amount. The politicians then stood back and it was delivered on time at an acceptable price. Not like the Jubilee Line Extension, which was built at a similar time and suffered endless interference from politicians.
One of my laws of project management states that the more political or board level interference in a project, the later and more costly the project will be. If however those at the top lay down a feasible specification with rigid time and cost limits, the project will more likely be delivered successfully.
Birmingham Curzon Street Station
Curzon Street station used to be Birmingham’s main station until the 1850s.
I took this picture, as my train arrived in New Street station.
Birmingham Curzon Street Station
If HS2 is built, it will become part of the station for Birmingham. It is after all a Grade 1 Listed Building.
A Decision Day For HS2?
HS2 is a project that I think will never be built.
I was listening to the debate on Radio 5 this morning about George Osborne’s £11. 5billion public pending cuts and one guy phoned in to question, why with the obvious need for cuts, we are going to spend £33billion on HS2.
There is so much opposition to HS2 amongst the Nimbys, that I suspect that at some time parliament will chicken out and vote the project down.
I have never heard so much opposition to a project, in my lifetime. But then the general public doesn’t want new railways, they want new roads on which to drive their gas-guzzlers.
I also think HS2 is probably going about things the wrong way, but as to what the right way is, I do not know.
But we do urgently need the following.
- More capacity on passenger trains from London to Manchester and onwards to Scotland. The case for Birmingham may be less important, especially, if services to Marylebone can be improved.
- More freight capacity through London and to the North, especially after London Gateway becomes fully operational.
- A rebuilt and more efficient Euston station.
The freight capacity cannot be increased without creating a substantial new railway.
It will be interesting to see the way that MPs vote.
Belgians Give Up On Fyra
The Belgian government has pulled out of the Fyra project to run high speed trains between Brussels and Amsterdam. It’s reported here.
This sorry story has a lot of lessons for governments, who try to implement large projects.
Building railway lines and in particular high-speed lines is not difficult, except for the odd local political and environmental problems, as HS1 found in Kent and HS2 is now finding. But the actual line generally works well from an engineering perspective, with the possible exception of the Wenzhou crash in China, where signalling may have been at fault. None of the high speed train crashes in this country, were caused by engineering problems on new lines.
The main problems with Fyra are all about using new unproven trains. No sensible project manager would ever use unproven technology at the heart of a new project. You could argue, that Boeing used an unproven battery system on the Dreamliner. But look what happened there!
The other major problem with Fyra is that they discontinued the traditional services between towns like The Hague and Brussels, thus alienating a lot of their target market.
So when you do a large project, make sure that it fits the aspirations of your customers.
If we look at HS2 to Birmingham, the technology to be used to build the line will be very much proven, as hopefully will be the trains, which will probably be derived from something that is working well in the UK or Europe.
The line too, will be an addition to the current services between the two cities. This in itself removes a lot of risk from this line, as say there is a problem that cuts capacity on HS2, you don’t have only one basket for your eggs. I also believe the competition from such as Chiltern and Virgin trains and their successors, will make sure that HS2 is competitive and reliable. Those two services, will also act as valuable feeder services to HS2, as say you live in Banbury and want to go to Leeds, you’d hop to Moor Street station in Birmingham and then take HS2 to Leeds, when that section of the line is completed.
The Anonymous Widower 