Making rail progress

Britain’s High Speed Two (HS2) is progressing rapidly – with remarkable similarities to the Northeast Corridor, this is one to keep an eye on.

The UK has been slower than many European countries to adopt high speed rail. The 68-mile link from London to the Channel Tunnel – HS1 – is all that is running today, but High Speed Two (HS2), a connection from London running northwest to Birmingham and beyond (a 135 mile project) is progressing quickly.

This is a project that has the full support of the major political parties. Indeed, when the coalition agreement between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat partners that form today’s UK government was drawn up in May 2010, this was an area of total accord. High speed rail is seen as essential not only to provide much needed transport capacity, but also to help re-balance the British economy. In particular, there is an aim to encourage development in the Midlands, the North and Scotland, taking some of the pressure off the crowded South East.

During the first half of 2011, HS2 is the subject of a formal planning consultation process, a necessary prelude to an application for parliamentary powers. Government’s aim is to make a start on construction in 2015.

The corridor northwest of London was identified as the right as the right choice for the next stage in developing a national high speed rail network in a report I had written and published back in June 2007 (High Speed Two: a proposition by Greengauge 21).

A feature of the project is that it is intended to be future-proofed. While the trains which will run over HS2 when it opens in 2026 will probably operate at no more than 225 mph, the route geometry will allow subsequent increases to 250 mph operation. But it is easy to get entranced with speed, when capacity is the prime policy driver for the project.

Looking remarkably similar to Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the existing railway that HS2 will parallel has been the subject of an in-place upgrade. Known as the West Coast Main line, this route links not only London and Birmingham, but also Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh too. Steer Davies Gleave has played a major part in thesuccessful upgrade of this line, which now enjoys 125 mph ‘Pendolino’ service, providing trains at 20-minute intervals between London and Birmingham and Manchester. Virgin’s West Coast franchise drove the transformation of the route, and Steer Davies Gleave was its lead advisor throughout. We specified the upgrade requirements that allowed for service frequencies to double, and ensured that they were delivered. But that’s not going to be enough for the 2020s, with traffic levels still growing at close to 10% per year.

The West Coast Main Line is a victim of its own success. Handling not only fast intercity services, but also a heavy commuter load and substantial freight movements, the case for HS2 rests on the inevitable limit to cost-effective incremental investment to the existing route.

For Steer Davies Gleave, with substantial experience with the Eurostar service and other high speed rail projects across Europe, HS2 has brought some exciting new challenges. A critical feature of planning HS2 is its interface with the existing rail network, these days owned and run by Network Rail, and Steer Davies Gleave has been advising Network Rail on planning for HS2 for the last three years. When HS2 opens, most of the new high speed trains will operate over a mix of the new (HS2) and the old (West Coast Main Line) infrastructure – some of which will need to be upgraded. And once HS2 is developed, there will be HS3 and HS4 to think about…