Government “not pursuing” HS1-HS2 Rail Link
This is the title of an article on Global Rail News.
The report entitled High Speed Two: East and West The next steps to Crewe and beyond considers it is just too difficult.
Section twelve of the report entitled Connecting to High Speed 1, goes into details.
They suggest an enhanced pedestrian link and say this for rail.
For rail, we considered a range of direct link options. It was, however, not possible to identify a viable rail option capable of meeting the strategic aspirations whilst successfully addressing stakeholder concerns. This was because the options were complex and expensive to construct and would have delivered infrequent, less attractive train services for HS2 passenger travelling to European destinations. As a result we do not intend to take forward proposals for a direct rail between HS2 and HS1 or include active or passive provision to support the construction of such a link in the future.
In my view, the only direct rail link possible, without demolishing half of Camden, would be a totally tunnelled double-tracked route from a few miles north of Euston to somewhere like Barking to connect with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. It could also be used to get freight trains between the West Coast Main Line and the Channel Tunnel and the ports in the South East.
But it would have a cost of almost the level of the tunnels for Crossrail or Crossrail 2. Have we got a spare ten billion pounds?
The Pedestrian Link
From drawings of Euston station after HS2 is opened, it would appear that the HS2 platforms are on the western side of the station.
Does this make the pedestrian link difficult?
The Crossrail Alternative
When HS2 opens in2026, it will stop at Old Oak Common station, where it will interface with a myriad of lines including Crossrail.
Crossrail at present only goes as far as Abbey Wood, but the route is safeguarded to Gravesend. As I showed in Crossrail Extension To Gravesend, extending Crossrail to Ebbsfleet International station, would not be a multi-billion pound project.
As the HS2 station at Old Oak Common is not finalised yet, I do hope when it is, that it is simple interchange between HS2 and Crossrail.
With a simple interchange between Crossrail and HS1, the link between HS1 and HS2 via Crossrail would not be as simple as a direct link, but it could have other advantages, when you look at the using Crossrail as a preferred link.
Convenience For Passengers
If Crossrail served Ebbsfleet International, this would mean that passengers from many more places would have a direct or one-change link to Continental services.
But the biggest winners would be those wanting to go between Heathrow and the Continent. What the direct frequency would be between Heathrow and Ebbsfleet International would be up to the planners, but I can’t expect there would be less than four trains per hour
I live close to Dalston Junction and might prefer to use Crossrail from Whitechapel to Ebbsfleet, at certain times of the day, when my routes to St. Pancras are extremely busy!
I believe that Crossrail should go be exected to Ebbsfleet International as soon as is feasible!
St. Pancras Is Too Small
I believe that in a few years time, London to Paris and London to Brussels will be turn-up-and-go services.
Given too, that plans exist for direct services to Amsterdam/Rotterdam, Marseilles and Cologne, it strikes me that a four-platform St. Pancras station will be too small in perhaps ten years.
Also, what would happen if say easyRail or RyanRail wanted to run low-cost services to Europe, which is or will be allowed by European Union competition rules?
With Crossrail linked to Ebbsfleet International, where there is plenty of space for more platforms, it would be possible that services could terminate there and use Crossrail to and from Central London.
Customs And Immigration
Once Crossrail is a feasible route to Continental services and the travel statistics start to be reliable, it might be possible so sort out our archaic customs and immigration arrangements.
When I travel between say Brussels and Frankfurt, I just have to have a valid ticket, but how long before I need to show my passport and have my baggage scanned on a journey like this?
Incidentally, if you travel on some long-distance trains in Spain, your baggage is scanned.
I think that with all the problems of terrorism and illegal immigration, that cross-border trains within the Schengen area, will come under tighter security rules in the near future.
Will regulations like this mean, when I am travelling from say Cologne to London, that I would undergo the same checks as another passenger going from Cologne to Brussels?
I certainly hope so!
Modern Ticketing
Surely with e-passports and contactless bank cards, we should be able to do something a lot better than exists today.
Imagine turning up at any major station on either side of the Channel, where you can board a train for the other side.
You put your e-passport on the turn-up-and-go terminal, which checks you against the passport. You just indicate on a screen where you want to go, choose your train and, pay for it and then walk through to the waiting area.
If you have already bought your ticket, the terminal would recognise you and after checking the bar code on your ticket or your bank card, you would also be let through.
The only thing to do before boarding, who be the personal and baggage scan.
All the technology to create a ticketing system like this is available today.
On the other hand, I would hate to see a system that was so slow, that you had to spend an hour in a station before travelling.
Thoughts On The Camden HS1-HS2 Link
After writing the previous sections and reading this section on Wikipedia about the link, I had the following thoughts.
- Trains between the Continent and HS2 would not stop in Central London. This might cause logistical problems for groups of travellers.
- To call at St. Pancras, trains would need to reverse at St. Pancras. Would there be enough platforms?
- Would Customs and Immigration services have to be provided at every HS2 station?
I suspect others have had the same and other thoughts and have thus decided that a pedestrian route is the best way to change between Euston and St. Pancras.
Journey Times
I wouldn’t use Ebbsfleet if the total journey time was a lot longer.
The following assumptions and facts can be considered.
- Ticketing, boarding or disembarking at St. Pancras or Ebbsfleet shouldn’t take different times.
- From Eurostar’s timetable St. Pancras to Ebbsfleet takes twenty minutes.
- From Eurostar’s timetable St. Pancras to Paris by the fastest train takes two hours sixteen minutes.
- From Eurostar’s timetable Ebbsfleet to Paris by the fastest train takes two hours five minutes.
- From Crossrail’s predictions, Old Oak Common to Abbey Wood will take thirty two minutes.
- I estimate that Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet International would take perhaps fifteen minutes.
- I estimate that Old Oak Common to |St. Pancras via a direct HS1-HS2 link would take perhaps fifteen minutes or a bit more, if the train had to reverse at St. Pancras.
This would give the following estimated times.
- Old Oak Common to Paris via St. Pancras would take two hours thirty-one minutes.
- Old Oak Common to Paris via Crossrail would take two hours fifty-two minutes.
So not building a direct link means that passengers using HS2 to get to Paris take another twenty-one minutes.
On the other hand, how many would book separate trains with a generous connection time and whilst crossing central London would have a relaxing meal?
Conclusion
I think that to save twenty-one minutes in a journey from HS2 to Paris, but completely rebuild the lines North of Euston and St. Pancras is a trade-off not worth making.
Walking Between St. Pancras And Euston Stations
In 2011, I wrote Getting Between Kings Cross/St. Pancras and Euston about how I walked between the stations.
This route has now been formalised with green signs.
I think when they finish the roadworks, it’ll be a good route. This is cut and modified from my original post.
So how would I make it better, so that in effect we had one super station for the north?
- Perhaps, it should be marked on the ground, as a Kings Cross/St. Pancras to Euston walking route.
- You might even provide some eco-friendly transport along the route, like an electric shuttle bus or bicycle rickshaws.
- A couple of suitably placed Boris bike stations would help too.
- Shops and cafes should be developed along the road. There are some already.
I was right that this would happen.
Will St.Pancras Cope With More Trains On Thameslink And Eurostar?
This lunchtime I walked through St. Pancras station from the entrance by Kings Cross station on Euston Road, through the Underground ticket hall and the shopping mall past the Eurostar Entrance and exit to get a train on Thameslink.
It is a long walk, but if you want to catch Thameslink after arriving in the area on a 30 bus, it’s the shortest way. When Thameslink had a station on the Pentonville Road it was just a short walk through the passages at the bus stop direct to the Thameslink platforms.
What made matters worse was that a Eurostar train had just arrived and the ticket hall and shopping mall were teeming with passengers and masses of luggage. After all it was Friday and the time was about that, where early morning trains from Paris and Brussels will arrive.
The Thameslink station wasn’t busy, but at this time there are only about half-a-dozen trains an hour each way through the station.
But in 2018, there will be twenty four trains an hour each way for a lot of the day.
As by then, Eurostar or other operators should be running to Amsterdam and Cologne, these will be delivering a whole lot more passengers into the station.
So I can’t help feeling that St. Pancras will be an incredibly crowded station.
I’m probably lucky in that I can pick up Thameslink at London Bridge by using a 141 bus or perhaps at Farringdon using a 56.
If the Thameslink station had been built as an island station with escalators at more than one place, the problems would have been mitigated, as I said in this post. I won’t withdraw my concluding paragraph in that post yet.
St. Pancras is very much a fur coat and no knickers station!
Show on top and draughty and lacking at the bottom!
It’s up to Thameslink and Network Rail to convince me to do so.
Could St. Pancras Thameslink Station Have Had An Island Platform?
St. Pancras Thameslink station is in a big box under the western side of St. Pancras station.
St. Pancras Thameslink Station
The picture shows the inside of the station with the two tracks running between wide platforms and the access by escalators at the side of the platforms. The escalators are joined by a bridge which has further escalators to the main station concourse.
Although step free it is not the nicest of interchanges.
Consider.
- Arriving Eurostar passengers must walk a hundred metres or so, then descend two escalators or lifts to get to a Thameslink platform.
- Departing Eurostar passengers at least have a shorter walk after they ascend to the concourse.
- Does the very independent Tante Dominique from Lille know whether she needs to go North or South on Thameslink to get to her nephew’s station of Sutton? This will get worse when the full Thameslink opens in 2018, as it will serve another 100 stations.
- Linking to the South Eastern High Speed and East Midlands services, involves a further ascent from or descent to the main concourse.
- To get to Kings Cross or the Underground, you have to walk across in one of two subways, which have steps and escalators at the St. Pancras end.
- The subteranean link from the Victoria Line to Thameslink must be the longest in London.
As the rebuilding of St. Pancras was only started a few years ago, it is a tragic case of old outdated thinking, getting in the way of modern design rules.
If you look at the design of the Crossrail station at Canary Wharf, you’ll see that the two rail lines are separated by a large island platform with escalators in the centre of that platform.
One picture in the link is a cross section of the station, which clearly shows the train lines and the stack of escalator connected floors above.
It would seem to me that St. Pancras Thameslink could have been created as a long island platform, with one set of escalators at the current location leading directly to the concourse.
The station would of course need to have platform edge doors, but London has had these for years on the Jubilee Line. As from 2018, Thameslink will be a totally Class 700 railway, the fitting of the doors could surely have waited until after the new trains had arrived. Remember that there are many busy stations in London, that work well without platform edge doors.
The central island layout gives several advantages.
- Several sets of escalators could be installed, as they will be at for instance at Canary Wharf. One could be at the Euston Road end and could speed passengers to and from that road, buses and the Metropolitan Line. Another could be in the centre to link directly to Eurostar and others might link across to the subways to Kings Cross.
- Passengers changing direction would just walk across the platform.
- It would be possible to add coffee stalls, toilets and other customer facilities as needs demanded.
- The biggest advantage would probably be the improvement in the passenger environment, by separating passengers and trains. So a rather draughty unwelcoming station would have been light and airy and much more customer-friendly.
In my view a wonderful opportunity has been missed to create the best station in the world.
All we’ve got is a second rate interchange, that means a lot of up and down, and walking down endless subterranean passageways.
St. Pancras is very much a fur coat and no knickers station!
Show on top and draughty and lacking at the bottom!
How We Use A Cross-City Railway
London has two main North-South cross-city railways; Thameslink and the East London Line, which are shortly to be joined by a third East-West line; Crossrail.
These three lines are characterised by a tunnelled central core, with branches fanning out on either side. This means that if the branch you live on is paired with another branch on the other side of the city, you will probably have to change trains in the centre if you want to go to an alternative branch.
It’s not just London, who use this sort of layout. Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool and Newcastle in this country have similar cross-city trains or metros, and I suspect that worldwide there are quite a large number.
I did a journey a few weeks ago, which illustrates how we use these lines. I’d been to my doctor’s surgery, which is close to Haggerston station and afterwards I needed to go to Norwood Junction, which is on the West Croydon branch of the East London Line.
As it was raining hard, instead of waiting for the next West Croydon train on an exposed platform, I took the first train. I then hopped-off this train at Canada Water and hopped-on my desired train, after waiting for a few minutes in a dry underground station.
This hop-off-hop-on behaviour at a convenient station in the core will get increasingly common, as more and more branches are added to these cross-city lines.
If you use National Rail’s Journey Planner for say Sutton to Luton, some routes offered, involve a change of train at either Blackfriars or St. Pancras using Thameslink. But in the current Thameslink, these changes are not same platform ones, like they are on the East London Line and hopefully will be on the upgraded Thameslink, when it opens in 2019.
Crossrail takes this concept to a whole new level!
Most if not all of the central core stations are island platforms, so that if you are on a train from Abbey Wood to Heathrow, but want to go to Maidenhead, you just hop-off and then hop-on the first train that calls at Maidenhead, using a convenient Central London station. But the island platform, also allow you to reverse direction on a hop-off-hop-on basis. So Abbey Wood to Shenfield becomes a simple step-free one-change journey.
Sadly, there is no central core island platform station on Thameslink and the East London Line. This is probably more to do with adapting existing stations, rather than a less than perfect design.
But imagine what a lovely station the below-ground Thameslink station at St. Pancras would be with a large light and airy, central island platform with trains behind platform edge doors! Perhaps it could have a welcoming coffee-shop, where you could refresh yourself and meet friends.
Which Idiot Obscured The Clock?
I was in St. Pancras recently and someone has put pointless stained glass in front of the clock.
Which Idiot Obscured The Clock?
I suppose it’s art, but for those of us who don’t wear watches it’s a big annoyance.
The Back Passage At Kings Cross St. Pancras
A new passage has opened up on Kings Boulevard, which lets you by-pass the crowds going to and from Granary Square, by linking you directly to the subway that goes under Pancras Road
it is certainly magnitudes better than some subways on the Underground.
New Buses for London On The Euston Road
The route 390 from Archway to Notting Hill Gate from this morning is using New Buses for London.
These pictures were taken on the Euston Road, in the vicinity of Kings Cross and St. Pancras stations, which now have a bus to compliment their own good design.
If you wan t to go in the Archway direction, you will just walk onto Kings Cross Square and pick up the bus along Euston Road. To go to Oxford Street and Notting Hill Gate, you need to cross the road.
I think that when they’ve finished the building work, it will be a lot better than it is at present.
A Day In Paris
As I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get home, before I left, I booked a ticket on the 21:10 Eurostar from Paris to London.
This effectively gave me nine hours in Paris, so I decided to go to the Louvre and then do some exploration.
Unfortunately, my camera ran out of juice, so there isn’t many pictures.
But I enjoyed myself otherwise!
I did even find a gluten-free creperie in Montmartre, but unfortunately it shuts on Mondays.
This wouldn’t have been a disaster, as I knew I’d get a good supper on Eurostar.
But unfortunately, I’d somehow mixed up getting my gluten-free meal.
The staff however, rustled me up some very acceptable chicken with chick-peas.
I was in my bed in Hackney by just after eleven, after eight trains in seven days.
Being close to St. Pancras means that trains are a very good option, as I can always get a bus home if the train is a very late one.
The
Hundreds Of Sunflowers
On the forecourt at St. Pancras station, it was all happening this morning.
It’s an art installation, that will be opening on Tuesday.
I shall return!
The Anonymous Widower 