The UK’s largest infrastructure project in the UK at the moment is phase 1 of the construction of “High Speed 2” or just “HS2”. Some of the experience and financial aspects should be informative about proposals for high speed rail projects in the US.
British trains have been regularly running at 125 mph (200 kph) since the introduction of Class 43 diesel “High Speed Trains”, branded InterCity 125s in 1976. These trains have an absolute fastest speed of 148.5 mph and the locomotives are still in freight and other service. One has been converted with equipment that can check rail conditions at full speed so it can survey without delaying other trains. An InterCity 225 (kph) train for service on electrified and upgraded long distance main lines was introduced but subsequent legislation set 125mph as the top limit. The trains though still carry passengers on at least one main route to supplement the latest rolling stock.
“High Speed 1” is the link from London to the Channel Tunnel. It was built to conform to standards that include such things as complete grade separation and fencing for public safety with the route as flat and straight as possible with minimum radius curves. As well as the international trains, there are high speed commuter services over the first part of the route. The maximum speed is 300kph (186 mph). HS2 is being built to the higher standard permitting the Europe’s fastest trains at 400kph (249mph). Along with the new Elizabeth line, it will take the journey time from central Birmingham to the main London business districts from over 2½ hours to a commutable just over 70 minutes.
Now it is undeniable that HS2 has faced huge cost increases and considerable delays. Many were at the start as the precise route was finalized. A lot of tunnels and viaducts had to be built for environmental as well as routing reasons. Archaeological sites had to be recorded and excavated. And of course the pandemic interrupted play. Phase 1 is now scheduled to start at the end of the decade but will terminate at the interchange with the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common station. Work on the final terminus at Euston has been delay until the first years of the next decade “for cost reasons”
HS2 was first mooted under a Labour Government but was put through Parliament under the 2010 coalition as a part grand plan to take the lines further to link with the main cities in the Midlands and North and speeding journey times. to Scotland by running the trains over new HS spurs or over existing upgraded electrified lines. HS3 or “Northern Powerhouse Rail” would link Liverpool to other major cities in North England with a West-East HS line and to the East Coast and West Coast main lines to Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland. The report was commissioned by the Coalition Government but the subsequent more car-centric Conservative governments have gone cold on the idea. Their own grand plan to get Labour “Red Wall” seats, proposing HS3 approval has been quietly downgraded. It is now an Acela-like “fast section then back to the existing tracks” solution. There is still however a strong financial and environmental case for just Phase 1.
Now a few observations and planning indications come from HS2. A high speed route should use rolling stock capable of through-running onto existing, if upgraded, infrastructure (i.e. electrify lines and upgrade signalling but no Maglevs or Hypedloops). Terminals should allow quick onward journey by public transport.
Here is a major difference between the UK and more car-centric nations. Good public transport feeding into the new high speed line stations means little or no land around is devoted to parking, (Brightline stations in Florida offer cars to.from home and nearby destination, GO Transit in Canada, I’m looking at you). Instead they attract office and apartment developments and associated shops etc as new “downtowns”.
Metro lines have been financed by the companies exploiting the land they acquire around their lines and stations to build new suburbs. Transport for London has built Barking Riverside on the Overground in the middle of nowhere apart from a college because a major mixed development is about to be built. The logic is having the transport there avoids car use becoming an established habit if the station was built later. For the last century or more, most London tube stations have been built with flat roofs so offices or apartments could be built on top. As a minimum they incorporated rows of shops as part of the design. The area around Old Oak Common station is changing from warehouse use to mixed developments. Similar things are happening around the new Birmingham station, built on the site of a redundant goods yard.
The Birmingham HS2 terminus is a 15 minute walk from the already congested mainline Grand Central New Street station development. There is an extensive bus network and a tram line that should provide a fast link and for onward local travel. This is one problem of getting new lines to the centers of cities.
The existing developments often necessitate putting such rail lines in tunnels and having a separate station building. Old Oak Common was built on existing railway land. The Elizabeth Line trains run up to 90mph (60mph in the central core tunnel) provides a fast link. Euston,with connections to London Underground lines, is being built on land next to the existing station. Congested approach lines next to Googles huge headquarters building mean that HS2 will emerge from a new tunnel very close to the station and the platforms will be under ground, The current station will be used for local and some long distance services. It is planned to demolish the existing drab 1960s glass box into a spanking new complex. All this adds to the complexity,expense and time taken to build.
Fast onward travel is a major consideration. This is where Brightline West seems to fall down. Its station outside of central Los Angeles will link to the local Metrolink line but can you see the problem?
Travel from Rancho Cucamonga to Las Vegas will take about 2 hours and 10 minutes. Including a connection from Downtown Los Angeles to Rancho Cucamonga via Metrolink, total trip time to Las Vegas will take about 3 hours.
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130 minutes for the high seed part is great, 50 minutes to get to the station is not. Onward travel in Las Vegas is sort of glossed over but I doubt there will be happy crowds milling about their station plazas, as shown in their pictures. More liked a rush for local taxis unless the local authorities get their act together, Now to some extent this will be irrelevant for LA and the Rancho Cucamonga station will have suitable parking lots but that does discourage transit centered development.
Brightline West have chosen to build to the less expensive 300kph standard rather than the 400kph of HS2. This has a cost advantage as extra safety and route considerations have to be considered. This speed/cost factor is a major consideration when planning a new line. The UK national speed limit of 125mph cannot be achieved on much of the network. Even after electrification and upgrading tracks and signals, a record attempt from London to Liverpool failed to beat a steam record (although it was slowed down by the dreaded “engineering work”.) The Intercity 125s in 1978 achieved their speed because Brunel built his railway from London to Bristol (to link to the steamship he designed for trans-Atlantic journeys) as straight and level as possible. This and his broad gauge meant travel could be fast and comfortable. Quite forward thinking for 1840.
The greatest difference between the US and UK is, put briefly, the railway habit. As I alluded to, planning and developments are very public transit oriented. People are more used to taking long distance rail journeys, even for commuting. The seaside city of Brighton was popular with wealthy West End actors because the train home took 60 minutes.
The possibilities of HS2 are exemplified by the Elizabeth line in London. It too was built to relieve congestion on the existing Underground lines in central London and to provide an East-West fast mainline (up to 60 mph in the core tunnel, 90 mph outside) through the center and beyond. It has been amazingly successful. At peak times it is crowded. It has about 600 to 700 thousand passenger journeys a day with,140,000 being journeys that would otherwise not be have made. Thankfully (and another lesson), provision was made to “future proof” the line with the platforms build to accommodate an addition carriage to bring them up to 10 cars. Another example of such an increase in demand is London’s Docklands Light Railway. It started with 2-car trains and now the are 6 cars.
A big factor in replacing car travel with train journeys is convenience. Long distance train travel is more relaxing than going by car and has less hassles than air travel. There is an ideal distance of 100-400 miles where trains have a time advantage over both. There is however another factor that swings a decision in favor of train travel — frequency. On London’s Victoria Underground line (also built to relieve congestion) at peak times two out of three trains run at intervals of 120 seconds while the third’s is 135 seconds. The current fastest service from London to Birmingham departs every 15 minutes. There are 20 Acela trains a day.
Brightline Florida has an hourly service although this is too frequently delayed by the bane of trains, road vehicles. More specifically the numbers of “meetings” between the two. In almost all cases the road vehicle comes off worse. The large number of “at grade” crossings on the existing line they upgraded would have been prohibitively expensive to remove to allow full speed running. Consequently long loads have a tendency to get a lot shorter when they get stuck on a crossing.US drivers are not familiar with the dangers of high speed trains at crossings. Too frequent delayed journeys make rail travel unattractive. This is one factor why high speed running requires complete grade separation from road traffic.
Now HS2 may well have additional costs from such factors as the need to tunnel under ancient protected woodlands or pay for extensive archeology excavations along the route. There will however be similar needs to run on bridges and viaducts or in tunnels to cope with local geography. Such unpredictable things caused by vagueness of initial plans lead to unpredictable but expected extra expense when the route is finalized. Expected but often omitted in the glossy presentations.
In both countries the environmental case for replacing car and air travel with trains is overwhelming. I would suggest that HS2 has a better socio-economic case. First of all, it is adding capacity on a route where the alternative lines are reaching or at capacity. Secondly it has the likelihood of its speed adding to the ridership. Just over an hour from home to office is easy commuting time. It also makes family trips to each city much more convenient. Getting to watch cricket at Edgbaston or the Oval in an hour or so from home in London or Birmingham (respectively) or the same time to take the family to Windsor Castle or the sights in central London effectively shrinks the country in terms of people’s perception. This has certainly been the experience in London itself with the opening of the Elizabeth line and to some extent the “outer outer circle” Overground, another recent introduction. Journeys from one side of London to the other no longer mean a long hot slog frequently stopping at stations. (Personal experience on Sunday when the Overground was part closed.)
One big difference in the economic case is the matter of over-station and station centered mixed developments. The potential to lease the “air space” over flat roofed station buildings and the prospect of leasing surplus rail land for mixed development does not seem to be an incentive to reduce build costs in a country which after all is used to a certain zoning philosophy that discourages it, and has more land anyway.
One big problem for both countries, more so in the USA, is that the infrequency of such major projects leads to the dispersal of the various skills, knowledge and expertise that need to come together for the work of delivering a railway/railroad. Part of the “social benefit” of HS2 is that the companies building it are obliged to take on apprentices or trainees to build the country’s skills base. Unfortunately, for the UK, these skilled workers will not be able to move on to the planned extensions and spurs so they are likely to move abroad.
Russia took a different approach to its high speed line between Moscow and St Petersburg. There they went to Siemans in Germany and in effect said “Build us a rail line with trains based on your Velaro model but 13 inches wider to take account of the Russian broad gauge. You build and service the first 8 trains but for the next bigger batch of trains, you will set up a factory in Russia.” Unfortunately sanctions over Ukraine mean no factory, no servicing and no spare parts or manufacturing capacity to even make bearings.
Such problems do not affect US trains as the “Buy American” policies to manufacture in the US means companies such as Siemans build the plants first. Siemans are building their Charger diesel locomotives for Amtrak and (with a different nose) Brightline Florida. The extra or more secure US jobs provided by new high speed lines is an added economic argument in favor of such developments. That by the way is a significant difference between US and European electricc passenger trains and, for that matter high speed trains. Rather than having a locomotive and carriages, trains are powered by motors on the wheels of each car and come in (matching) sets of cars. You start off with a two car set with a driver’s cabin at each end and add extra cars with through connections in the middle until you get the size you want. None of the “stick another locomotive on the back” business to reverse, the driver simply walks to the other end.
One of many differences but I hope that some of the history, challenges and arguments in favor of HS2 can inform your views on high speed and other rail proposals for the US.
