British Intercity Trains..... How I'd fix them
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- Welcome to the first proper episode of how I'd fix the railways. This one is on intercity trains and related infrastructure. My next episode will be on sleeper trains.
I'd say this video turned out ok but I think this series would work better as a podcast so after the sleeper train video, I'll make a podcast about my plans for West Yorkshire which I'll also hopefully get on Spotify etc.
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I agree with much of what you say here, I think in the short term we should pause building on HS2 and the main priority needs to be making best use of the facilities and infrastructure we have already. To me, that means redrawing services somewhat, simplifying the tangled map of train operators, and ensuring that trains are sufficient for the services they're running. Many Transpennine routes, routes like Liverpool to Norwich and Cardiff to Portsmouth should become part of an extended Cross Country franchise alongside new East-West Routes (Holyhead to Hull via Leeds, Liverpool to Lincoln and perhaps Skegness via Sheffield), a service between Manchester and Nottingham that uses the curve at Dore to avoid reversing in Sheffield. These trains should be operated as proper intercity services, all should have no fewer than 9 carriages and all should have catering and first class available. Electrification of the MML, Transpennine and XC lines should also be prioritised.
In the longer term, we need to really look again at High Speed Rail and decide what we want to achieve, and stick to a plan. At the minute we're building blind and that's never a good thing. HS2 has become a complete Frankenstein of a project given all the changes and we need to either commit to spending what it costs to do it right, or abandon it.
I would never have chosen the route that has been selected and think the M1 corridor would have been far superior for connectivity, and connectivity and capacity rather than speed needs to be the real aim.
I'd scrap Curzon Street station in favour of expanding New Street, paid for by scrapping Birmingham Interchange entirely (really, what is the point ?) and I'd use New Street as the centre of a new roughly X shaped network with provision built in for future expansion.
The spur to London already being built, would, in an ideal world not go through the Chilterns but as it does they should have a parkway station and interchange with East-West rail link. Ideally it should use St Pancras or Kings Cross rather than Euston (or all three combined to form one big super hub) but I'll concede that that might be too big, complicated and expensive a task.
Out from Birmingham you can then have a NE spur to Nottingham (or, and here's a radical idea, East Midlands Parkway right next to a massively expanded East Midlands Airport as a new Central UK hub airport as an alternative to expanding Heathrow), Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle Edinburgh and Glasgow. A NW spur to Manchester, Liverpool and North Wales. A SW spur to Bristol, South Wales and Devon/Cornwall.
I'd also of course build East-West connections including a new Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds/Sheffield route.
More than anything else though, what we need is a vision and joined up thinking. It doesn't matter whether it's my vision, your vision or somebody else's vision but there needs to be one that's set out and adhered to.
I completely agree with your Birmingham Idea, since Cursor street's western end will be near Moor and New street, I would extend New Street out east (while rearranging its tracks) and have one massive Birmingham central combining all 3 stations (with a metro station underneath for a new, proper west midlands metro)
I also like your idea of a combined train/airport hub in the East Midlands, I hadn't thought of this. as I said, my idea is to have high speed trains go right into Nottingham. Keep in mind that the airport would need room to expand and with more capacity on HS1 and sleeper trains to Europe (which I explain in my sleeper train video), we'd hopefully free up some capacity at Heathrow, Gatwick etc so we don't need to expand any airports.
2:22 I do understand the idea of there being development around the stations but to be honest why wouldn't there be housing with the huge shortage we've got (because TOD is good). Like for sure it would not only be offices unless it's Milton Keynes and then yeah ofc it's crap but that's more of a Milton Keynes design choice than anything else- yet I do also understand that new station builds are a bit bland and plasticky and am personally lucky to have my local as a grade II listed station.
Going back to the idea of development, is this what they put in their plan or what you think there will be?
There were no concrete plans for development around the proposed East Midlands Hun station (which currently isn’t being built anyway) but I imagine if it were to go ahead, loads of developers would be desperate to get their hands on it and what they’d build would be very Milton Keynes esque. However, I do think you’re right about them building housing. It’ll probably be the main thing they’d build
I dream of been able to open the window and get some fresh air again. Was travelling intercity in Poland recently and took an old train back and my god it was nice to be able to get a breeze rather than rebreathing hot canned air.
I think having a regular drumbeat of electrifying lines should be the priority atm- the government should set targets into law, then the private sector can plan around it, rather than the boom-bust culture of today. Planning permission of a lot of rail needs to be more permissive, and many lines need to be preapproved- look how much opposition even tame schemes such as east-west rail is generating! Building costs per km of track atm are an order of magnitude higher than Spain, and I don't see how continuing like this is feasible.
Gotta agree with your disapproval of the hub station concept for the east midlands- they often are an excuse to build stations moated on all sides by hundreds of meters of surface parking.
Thanks for the video!
definitely agree with you re electrification. my plan is for each metro area/region to set a goal to electrify 2 or so sections of track each year along with line reopenings. I think things will go faster if organised locally, look at Wales. only high speed rail would remain a national project