William Barter
@WilliamBarter1
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Independent rail planning consultant
Towcester
Joined April 2011
OK, now imagine that HS2 is feeding passengers to Old Oak Common, wanting to go to central London. What happens to them ?.
‼️⚠️#Whitechapel - A broken down engineering train between London Paddington and Whitechapel means all lines are blocked. As a result service is suspended between London Paddington and Stratford / Abbey Wood. 🕛Major disruption is expected until 12:00.
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@gregsmith_uk A) no we wouldn’t save cash, in fact it would cost cash to cancel and make good again B) no it would not improve existing railway, that is its limit which is why we are building HS2 C) Do you actually know anything about anything let alone transport?.
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Sabotage to French high speed rail routes caused by a multiplicity of men in vans targeting key points out on the network. Seems a lot of effort - @RishiSunak sabotaged ours without leaving his hotel room.
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This is the @mragilligan who thinks 400m trains can run from HS2 Phase 1 to the NPR station in Manchester. Rule of thumb: if he says something, do the opposite.
If true, this is insane. With other rail projects being asked to find cuts, and this sucking up all the money, it means most of the North will now never get better local and regional services.
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@thehistoryguy @PickardJE She’s right, it’s the bloody think tanks like Policy Exchange, IEA, TPA who expect influence without election, job interview or procurement process we need to get out of government. Is that what she meant?.
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If I buy a ticket at an office, don't use it, and return it to the office the same day for refund, there is no admin fee. If I buy it on an app, there is a fee charged immediately for cancellation. Why, when I have done all the admin myself?.
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@HuwMerriman When anyone who knows anything is telling you that you are wrong, does it not worry you even a little? Who exactly is telling you that growing rail freight is compatible with cancelling HS2 Phase 2a, and what do they know about railways?.
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@HuwMerriman @JohnGlenUK You build it to Euston, six platforms with grade separation and scope to extend. Then you build Phase 2A to Crewe to avoid the Colwich Shugborough Stafford bottlenecks. What you do NOT do is sell land to make that impossible. That frankly is the bleedin’ obvious, less is nuts.
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@HuwMerriman @Mark_J_Harper I don’t understand how anyone with an ounce of self respect can tweet this tripe. Spin is one thing, blatantly claiming black is white is in a whole new league for a government.
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@Mark_J_Harper Bollocks. For a start, £12bn is common to both NPR and HS2. Then, many of your Network North schemes will never see the light of day as they still need business cases and thus DfT sign-off. And your Network North does nothing for the key issue of Manchester Piccadilly capacity.
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Just reading pathetic whingeing from @HuwMerriman in Modern Railways. Of course you don't know how reverting to Ph 1 will work as a railway - timetable, train length, frequency etc. But shouldn't you have thought of that before cancelling Ph 2A? Ph 2A worked, and we knew that.
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@grantshapps What Victorian 4-aspect signalling giving 3-minute headways at 125 mph are you referring to?.
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Here’s another, picking out capacity constraints on the WCML and relating them to the stages of HS2 that would relieve them.
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Bizarre tweet from Andrew Gilligan, referring to the 'Two Mayors' report arguing for a new 'I can't believe it's not HS2' line from West Midlands for the sake of capacity, mainly by enabling use of 400m trains by bypassing the classic WCML.
The report is dishonest in many ways. It claims a capacity crisis on the WCML because "beyond Birmingham. the WCML infrastructure is only able to accommodate 200m trains." Not true: the plan always was to run 400m trains on the classic line, both to Manc and Scotland.
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@johnredwood John, you are talking complete bollocks. First the technical headway at full speed on plain line is rarely if ever the binding constraint on capacity of a network. Then if you magically run these extra trains which stations could take them. Please listen to people who know stuff.
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OK, this not Phase 2a/b proposal from the two mayors. Yes they clearly have the right answer, a new line using the Phase 2A alignment. I'm not going to disagree with that. The shame is that we have had to go round the houses again to establish the bleedin' obvious.
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@zarahsultana @eiecampaign You are on a train directly operated by the DfT, on infrastructure run by public Network Rail, and designed under British Rail.
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@VotePursglove Are you taking the piss? You cancelled national strategic infrastructure to fund routine road maintenance. All that shows is that local authorities were underfunded for maintenance., and will be again when this cash is spent. What is your long term plan for funding LAs? Oh ….
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@Tees_Issues @RAIL Do you mean - should HS2 be scrapped so as to incur billions for broken contracts whilst not releasing a penny for immediate crises as the funding for it hasn’t been borrowed yet?.
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@mragilligan But ignoring your trivialisation of the issue, that only works if you have rails. How exactly do you think WCML rails lead to a 400m station in Manchester? Draw a picture if it helps (it would certainly help you).
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@Samfr They are right. Phase 1/2A Euston - Crewe train service was planned to Working Timetable level of detail against a very rational specification, including HS2 trains on conventional railway. It worked very well. If you then hack bits off at the behest of shady think tanks . .
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Just occurring to me - if Euston HS2 station is be funded privately, with a toll per passenger as the payback, it will be in the interests of the finders to maximise passenger numbers? Meaning provide capacity to maximise numbers of trains and draw passengers in from more routes?.
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@HuwMerriman You just said the upgrade is complete. Network North was only published in November last year. Are you seriously claiming that an upgrade was funded, authorised and completed in six months?.
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@mragilligan And bollocks from start to finish it is too! No the route is not wrong. Almost no difference between a 250kph route and a lower speed. Yes it links well to the rest of the transport system. Curzon St to New St is much less than 15 minutes, only affects those who need train onward.
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@transportgovuk And what happens after December 2024? Subsidising bus services needs money year after year, but you can only cancel.HS2 once.
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Is further proof needed that the HS2 decision was a grade 1 industrial-strength screw-up by @RishiSunak @Mark_J_Harper @HuwMerriman ?.
Misery for motorists as Rishi Sunak’s HS2 cut set to add 500,000 lorries to traffic jams. The new line would have freed up capacity for more freight trains on the west coast mainline
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@montie @RishiSunak @andy4wm What total tripe. In fact anyone who knows anything is calling for it to be reinstated. Sunak’s decision pushed by Gilligan and @Policy_Exchange was bordering on irrational. Cost increases firmly down to government approach to procurement and contracts.
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@mragilligan But you also need the rails to join up Phase 1 and the NPR station. Go on tell us - what is your planned route from Handsacre to the new NPR station in Manchester?.And - was this suggestion part of your advice to @RishiSunak.
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Figure 10 in the 'Network North' document claims that even with the truncated HS2 network WCML long distance seats from Euston would 'near double'. Based on reasonable assumptions as to what the service would be, I can only just get above 60%
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@HuwMerriman @HS2ltd It should of course pave the way for trains from Glasgow, Leeds, Sheffield, York, Newcastle to free capacity on existing lines, but someone advised only by shady think tanks and shadowy advisers seems opposed to that.
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A bit fundamental, one might think, for someone so recently quoted by @BBCPanorama , and who has the barefaced cheek to accuse others of spreading misinformation. But there's another aspect to this, which is @mragilligan 's utterly naive understanding of what 'capacity' means.
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@joncstone Need to know whether the safeguarding will remain and provision made for the junction onto it at Streethay. Designing out scope to extend would be scorched earth. 2a adds a lot of value for relatively little cost.
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There’s been a big thread going on about whether 18 trains per hour (tph) is feasible on a high speed railway, and specifically HS2. Sceptics demand to know whether any other high speed railway can do 18 tph, and refuse to accept that HS2 could until another railway does.
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Look at the inanity and ignorance of the @Policy_Exchange Head of Transport and adviser to @RishiSunak.
@WilliamBarter1 The same way as to Scotland: point the train in the right direction then press a button.
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@mragilligan Scotland yes, Manchester no. Please state precisely how you think the WCML leads to a 400m station in Manchester.
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Para 24 in 'Network North' talks about an 'upgrade' of Handsacre Junction. As it doesn't exist yet, there is nothing to upgrade. Or does this mean they are reverting to the Fast line connection that was planned before Phase 2a was brought forward?.
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@LouHaigh @Modern_Railways Stop moaning about it, he is doing the right thing and we need to know that you would too.
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Here we go – the Berkeley report. A vague report relying heavily on assertions, quotations and weasel words - “could easily”, “probably” and other terms intended to cover up lack of analysis. This is most apparent in anything about operations and service planning.
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@grantshapps Can I be there when someone breaks it to you that ETCS Level 2 is a fixed block system, just like 4-aspect MAS?.
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Greg, as I have told you before, this doesn’t work as the benefits of HS2 do not form a cash flow that an investor can reap. Someone in Manchester getting a better job is a benefit but not a cash flow to the builder.
At @cabinetofficeuk questions I challenged the Paymaster General to introduce a private sector viability test to government projects, citing the example of HS2 where the lack of interest of any private sector investor should have been the warning that it is a terrible idea.
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Well, another day, another deafening silence from @mragilligan , head of transport at @Policy_Exchange , adviser to two prime ministers, as to how HS2 trains joining the WCML at Handsacre can access 400m platforms at a new Manchester station, without rails to take them there.
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@breeallegretti @kitchentowel But the big lie in Network North is that cancelling capital projects can fund ongoing expenditure. These potholes will happen again but you can only cancel HS2 once - where is the next tranche of cash coming from?.
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@Helen_Whately Inflation since they last had a rise - 23%. So how is 15% ‘inflation busting’?.
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The irrational HS2 cancellations and now this national service fiasco are exposing the malign influence of think tanks, with Onward now added to the usual suspects - Policy Exchange, the IEA etc etc. First, why do they feel entitled to pull the PM's strings . .
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@philatrail @padders123 So even if dropping the speed saves you engineering costs, it will add operating costs. The fact is that HS2 with Phase 2A worked very well as a railway. Throwing it away without thinking the alternatives through to the same level is a very bad idea.
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@RossLydall @HS2ltd @LordPeterHendy Trying to be fair, the Phase 1 concept was always six platforms for a 10 tph service as a first stage at Euston. But critically the HS2 part of the station would be extended into the existing footprint once WCML trains shift to HS2. It is not clear that this is being ruled out.
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@LouHaigh @RishiSunak Instead of political sniping, you should welcome this development as it makes HS2 Euston inevitable and without that the massive investment has little value. Say it’s a Sunak flip-flop if you want because it is, showing how half-baked him pausing Euston was. Now get on with it!.
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@RishiSunak @mragilligan @Policy_Exchange @BBCPanorama I see you have turned off replies, Andrew. So here's my challenge to you, either correct yourself, or explain yourself and say why my analysis of your presumed view is wrong. And BTW - never again advise a PM. That goes for you too @Policy_Exchange.
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@TurnipRail That artificially depresses the figure as many Elizabeth line journeys were made on GE and GW suburbans previously. Anyway HS2 was never going to be a commuter railway, so commuting levels are irrelevant. Look how fast business travel is recovering.
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@morton_wendy Oh Wendy please! You know better than this, do not just the guff Shapps' feeds you. The ECML is 4-aspect multiple aspect signalling dating from the 70s. Yes it needs replacing and ETCS is the standard replacement, but 'Victorian'? No.
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Do you @HuwMerriman know why we invented Phase 2A? It's because Phase 1 alone didn't really work as a railway, pushed everything to its limits, too many operational weaknesses. Phase 2A addressed those, but now you've blown 2A away you're surprised they are back again.
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@SouthEastRailGp And do so whilst ensuring that the extensions beyond Phase 1 can never be reactivated. That is pure spite. HS2 will never work to more than half the capability of the route.
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FoI turns up something useful. BCR for HS2 Phase 2a (June '23) is 1.3. Not startling, but avoiding cost of Fast Line connection at Handsacre will improve it. Also based on a 10 tph service spec, but Phase 1 alone is assumed 8 tph, so if extra 2 tph are due to 2a benefits go up.
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@Mark_J_Harper Only a few months ago you came back from Japan saying how wonderful high speed rail would be for the UK. What facts precisely have changed since then? None.
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@JohnRentoul That doesn’t make sense. The reckoning was that if both OOC and Euston were built, 1/3 would route via OOC and 2/3 via Euston. Euston has multiple tube lines, buses, taxis. OOC is dependent on the Elizabeth line, taxis would be £30 more from.OOC.
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Phase 1 without 2A is like deciding your 1 inch water pipe isn’t big enough, so replacing half of it with a 2 inch pipe.
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This fellow fooled @RishiSunak but that’s where it stops. How do trains from HS2 Phase 1 reach 400m platforms in Manchester, Andrew, you haven’t favoured us with your insight on this yet,.
Has this liar responded about hs2 platforms at Manchester piccadilly station yet?.
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@Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty Well, putting years of opposition aside, well done on this triumph, the outcome of years of hard work. Question is though - what now? What to do to convince the Starmer government to proceed with Phase 2A at least? Crunch time is Feb 2026 when the hybrid Bill CPO powers expire.
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BBC is reporting the ‘could be up to’ £106 billion for HS2 as fact. It is not. It is one person’s view with minimal analysis behind it. It is not fact.
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I see "start HS2 in the North" has raised its head. It's nuts. This is why. 1) Phase 1 (South End) is all but shovel-ready. Postponing it won't speed up delivery of Phase 2 (North End) but would leave construction blight in London and Chilterns for another couple of decades.
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@HuwMerriman How is this ambition compatible with baking in a permanent capacity constraint slap in the middle of the nation's key freight trunk route?.
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Please don't be silly. Amber is pretty typical for projects as will be seen from the full report. A drop to red clearly indicates something going wrong, which can only be Euston. Even so many other projects have been red at some point and been delivered, as will HS2 be in the end.
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@GarethDennis The instant you deviate from the authorised alignment to reap these alleged savings you add years .
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Bit of fag-packet work, but for Euston - Leeds calling at Interchange, EM Parkway, Chesterfield, Sheffield I get 137 minutes, passing Interchange it's 132. That compares with HS2 all the way 79 or 84. Current best KX-Leeds is 133.
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Here's what the combination of 10 platforms at Euston and the IRP does to the HS2 2020 TSS. Note rump of Eastern leg carries just 6 x 200m trains per hour - does that make a business case? And just 1tph free at Euston - that'll never justify extending to Leeds.
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@Mark_J_Harper You have no plan for Manchester Piccadilly capacity, Birmingham-Manchester capacity, Euston HS2. When it comes to not having plans, you’re the bee’s knees.
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18 My conclusion? If we are going to spend tens of billions on new infrastructure, the most idiotic thing conceivable is to make relatively small savings that hamstring capacity and reliable operation for ever. Don’t do it. Just don’t.
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@RossLydall @HS2ltd @LordPeterHendy If no decisions have been made on train services that will run when HS2 opens, how does he know that 6 platforms are either enough or not excessive? It is lunacy to design a station without knowing what it is for.
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@mragilligan Funny the mayor of Manchester doesn't know about it! Where is this 400m station to be, Andrew, and how exactly does it connect to HS2 Phase 1?.
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OK, let’s play this one dead straight. @mragilligan you said HS2 trains from Phase 1 could access 400m platforms at a new Manchester station under present plans. Others say they can’t, and you called that misinformation.
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@philatrail What conflicting development have they in mind? Anyone would think the residents of rural Staffs were crying out for distribution centres, incinerators, digesters and housing estates to be built instead of HS2. Expect a few protests if any of those are proposed now!.
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@philatrail @padders123 Just done a bit of arithmetic, and 225 kph (140 mph) v. 360 kph Fradley - Crewe costs a bit over 5 minutes. Apart from lost benefits, that is enough to blow Liverpool and Glasgow turnrounds meaning more stock and higher platform occupation. Manchester is knife-edge.
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@ojngill @HS2ltd @telebusiness @Telegraph In an industry with high fixed costs and low variable costs, the way to reduce subsidy is to increase volume - get passengers back on trains by marketing, pricing, quality. All opposed by the Treasury.
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Get it @RishiSunak ? Got it @Mark_J_Harper ? Cancelling 2A is nuts, selling the land would be downright spite. Listen to people who know things, not to Cummings and Gilligan who don’t.
@WilliamBarter1 @ExpressandStar 2a is really a no brainer. Once you’re at Crewe it’s much easier to actually utilise Phase 1 and the journey time benefits are much greater. Leveraging a £45bn investment with 10% of that cost is far too logical to ignore….
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@Captain_Deltic I really don't see how anyone ever thought they could get away with one door per side. I know Eurostar does but there is no equivalent of Old Oak Common, trying to shift a third of a train load within two minutes wheel stop to wheel start so more like 90 seconds for passengers.
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What a nasty, ignorant piece of work this man is, setting workers against pensioners. Claimed saving from cutting the WFA is five times the annual cost of the drivers' rise of 15% (inflation 23% since their last rise).
Labour have voted *twice* today to take away the Winter Fuel Payment from pensioners in order the boost the already high salaries of train drivers. ~.This is an assault on our pensioners and is a callous move by the Labour Government that leave our elderly vulnerable this winter.
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Oh no! We spend our working lifetimes planning railways, teaching, publishing, but this guy thinks a sweeping statement with no evidence or analysis counts for more. Clueless or what?.
@EdDavie Why not just create the capacity on those lines. And deliver it a lot more quickly. Can be done.
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Just thinking what a perfect storm privatisation was for driver pay and conditions! 1) created a labour market driving pay up, instead of having a monopoly purchaser keeping pay down 2) movement between employers at will instead of BR’s central control of transfers.
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OK @christianwolmar why exactly do you describe 18 tph on the HS2 core route as ‘fanciful’? I assume you have read the modelling methodology set out in IRSE News in May 2010. What precisely is you critique of that methodology and its findings?.
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@andy4wm @kitchentowel He says he will drop safeguarding for 2a and 2b. That means they will never happen regardless of your consortium. If you do nothing else get that changed or else it is a scorched earth strategy.
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@NicholasHellen @TheFactCompiler Shows yet again that development of the timetable and specification of the infrastructure should go in lock-step from the outset. You cannot build infrastructure and only when it’s finished wonder what train service you can run.
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@LichfieldLive These people are deluded. Without HS2 Phase 2A West Mids - Crewe it will be very difficult to maintain present service levels at Lichfield and Tamworth let alone improve them.
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@RobertJenrick Rubbish. Network North was always a fantasy. Apart from the howlers, it instantly degenerated into just an 'illustrative list' of projects, all still subject to business cases and most never will have business cases. It was designed by Sunak to be cancelled.
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@TerribleMaps @ianno87 There was once a street map outside Tunbridge Wells station that had the streets listed in an index. But not in alphabetical order. In order of which square in the map they fell into. So you had to find your street on the map in order to look it up in the index . .
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@timleunig Seriously? Because the 1100-seat trains are 2 x 200m sets = 400m long, and with only HS2 Phase 1 in place they cannot access any station in Manchester with, or planned to have, platforms capable of taking a 400m train.
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@PickardJE The piece of pure spite in this is lifting safeguarding of West Midlands to Crewe. That section adds a lot of value for relatively little cost. It is critical to exploiting the released capacity benefits in full, especially for freight.
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@philatrail Has HS2 minister @Andrew4Pendle now cancelled more of HS2 than he has authorised? Should be retitled the Non-HS2 minister. Or possibly the HS2 non-minister.
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@johnredwood Then you seem unaware that the biggest source of loss of capacity is running trains of different speeds on the same tracks, for which your new signals do nothing. Answer is extra tracks to segregate trains more. Question is what sort of tracks. Answer is high speed long distance.
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@Mark_J_Harper @transportgovuk @andy4wm @MidsConnect You are however ham-stringing the capacity of the line by cancelling Phase 2A West Mids to Crewe which bypasses capacity constraints Colwich - Stafford. You must not lift safeguarding or sell the land, it will be needed even if you can’t see that now.
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@Mark_J_Harper @yorkshirepost So what are you doing about capacity at Manchester Piccadilly station? HS2 would have released two platforms for use by local trains. Same at Leeds. Both stations currently forced to put 2 even 3 trains in the same platform due to lack of capacity.
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@mragilligan And while you're doing that, reflect that for 7 years it was my job to write the HS2 timetable. Knowing where the rails go is important to that. So the chance that I know more than you on this is, shall we say, better than average.
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@transportgovuk @grantshapps @morton_wendy Chuck this £16bn thing. It was not to support rail workers jobs. But having destroyed the railway's income by telling people to work from home, it was the cost of keeping a service running for those who couldn't. Rightly. But no bearing on this dispute.
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After nearly 40 years, Westerham is starting to take shape!
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@PMA_Accountants Redesign the Phase 1 line now? Would need a new parliamentary bill for the new land take, whole new set of petitioners, environmental assessment, land purchase. Would take years and cost extra billions. Don’t be silly.
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Just been on BBC News 24 about HS2. Most of the questioning was on cost which is not my speciality, but tried to make points - get Oakervee published, new infrastructure for capacity then speed follows, don’t delay Phase 1.
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@RAIL Despicably snide item in @Telegraph today. "72.8 mph is said to be within the speed limit of 75 mph". No it isn't "said to be" - it is. Also lazy, sloppy wording suggesting the train was heading towards a reported landslip at that speed - it wasn't.
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1 Thanks to @TomBerridgebbc, we now have a fair idea what the Oakerveee review concludes. As there can hardly be an official response until the review is published, here’s my take on key operational issues.
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