Also as for 'why not upgrade/fix/expand the WCML'... Nimbyism [which is always a problem], and the fact you'd have passengers kicking off at the lengthy closures of all or part of it whilst the work is done [with no guarantees it'd work out any cheaper].
BINGO. Can't shut down existing lines to refurbish for a year or two because there are no fallback lines (and that does little for capacity as that needs whole-network signalling refurbishment to do so, which means shutting down even more lines), so you need to build new lines. And if you're going through all the cost of surveying, buying land, regrading, buying kilotons of steel, etc, you may as well do the tweaks necessary for high-speed rail (tighter tolerances, wider minimum turns, banked tracks, higher load ratings) which add a much smaller fraction of the cost to the system but future-proof it.
If it's mainly for capacity we could just knock some bridges down (or raise them) and use double decker carriages like they do on the continent. Seems a far cheaper option if the tracks can handle it.
[saltmode] I think the way it was explained on ol' reddit was that high speed trains currently run on the same lines as normal slowpoke trains. But high/higher speed trains require bigger distances between them because of stopping distances. By removing the faster trains the normal trains can be run closer together because you don't have to worry about a fast train fudging up the stopping distances, thus increasing capacity, and as @edzieba mentions, I assume you'd get the bonus of redundency if you need to fix/upgrade/maintain the current line. [/saltmode] Spoiler: not that salt....
Taller carriages. Extra levels. More seats. No? Tunnels, bridges and electric lines may have to be rejigged but still.
Double deckers. We have them in mainland Europe. By positioning the lower deck between the wheels (so eye level meets platform level), and slope the upper wall the top deck still fits through a tunnel and under electric lines. And the space increase is huge. HS2 is just insanely expensive. Who do they have running the spreadsheets, Chris Grayling?!? I mean, mainland Europe has high speed trains too; let's compare costs with France's TGV. The distance from London Euston to Birmingham New Street is 100 miles (more or less --HS2 would go from Curzon to St. Pancras actually, which are about 1.2 miles to 0.5 miles from their sister station, respectively, so distance would be roughly the same). This means HS2 would clock in at just over £1 billion per mile. The TGV cost about £12.3 million per mile (using a more recent line build as example, to allow for inflation) with the latest, most complicated one (due to seven long viaducts and a long tunnel) coming in at £18.5 million per mile. That is less than 2% of the cost per mile of HS2.
I had to google that because my brain refused to believe the distance is that short... Newcastle to York is 100 miles... For the rest of it, how much of that cost is laying the track/lanscaping work... and how much is spent compulsory purchasing of land, legal fees and all that crap [it may be easier, and thus cheaper to go 'Get le **** out, we're building som TGV through your house' in France than in the UK]... I'm somewhat reminded of the meme breaking down the cost of a cup of Starbucks coffee, where the coffee itself was the cheapest bit.
In France, land is about 4-6 times cheaper than the UK (I checked that too), but in France compulsory acquisition is now subject to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ah so that's how it's structured. I was tryjng to picture them in my mind as I remembered they didn't seem any larger on the outside. But yes, now I remember getting on from the platform and you either go down a few stairs or up. So, the question is, why are we not investing in these quicker, more spacious trains for far less money?
**** knows. Apparently, the UK had one in London in 1949 (not a very good one though). But some German design studio is working on a design. They are awesome; the UK should just forget about HS2 and introduce double deckers everywhere.
Due to the age of much of the infrastructure, loading gauge is a bit of nightmarish problem a when it comes to double deckers on much of the network. Not to say it's necessary impossible with a bit of blue-sky thinking, but it's by no means an easy solution that has simply been overlooked.
Possibly, i ain't no expert in the old choo-choos. I can't imagine it'd cost £100billion+ though. Then again i find it hard to believe anything costs that much
Probably more expensive, having worked on the railways (pway) i can tell you that replacing a bridge (over a road) was more expensive than replacing 4-5 miles of track. They also have much newer tracks in Europe and IIRC different gauge and higher tunnels. You've got to remember most of our rail system is Victorian in design, yes stuffs been renewed/replaced but there's only so much you can do, Europe had the 'advantage' of having most of its rail infrastructure destroyed during WWII, we didn't and as such have been making do, often with limited investment.
Yep. As with high-speed: train cost is a small fraction of total sysem price. To 'just' use double-decker trains requires: - Survey of entire network carriages will be operating on, depoted to/from, transported to/from (because you need to get them onto the tracks at some point from the factory, which itself may not even be on the same continent), etc to see where extra clearance is needed and the currents state of the track - Testing of current legacy (decades to century old) track to confirm if it can take the increased loads, and what needs replacing t bring it up to spec. This could be rails, sleepers, fixings, track bed, or all the above - Surveying for new bridges and cutting new tunnels - Land purchase for access to said bridges and tunnels - Demolition of buildings blocking construction above/around bridges and tunnels (oh no, that building is listed! Gotta build an entire new track section in a 20 mile loop to fit it around existing landscape and buildings) - Construction cost of bridges and tunnels - Existing line is out of action during construction - Etc, etc... "Just use cheaper trains!" makes about as much sense as someone with a legacy PII slot system running a gas chromatograph on two-decade-old software being recommended "just buy a Threadripper and drop it in. It's the best bang for the buck!".
They wouldn't bother with that as it's easier/cheaper to crane them onto low-loader and drive them there in the dead of night. Again they wouldn't bother as they already know what certain sections of track can and can't handle, not only that most of the legacy stuff has been replaced over the years, sure there's probably some places that still use jointed rail but that's normally in low speed, low traffic places. Most places use CWR and there's not a load or speed rating to that (within reason), the things that stop trains going hell for leather is mainly curves and switches, and you can't really change them much as reducing a radius needs a change to the boundaries and points are normally there for a reason so replacing them for CWR can cause all sorts of routing problems. It's the same with weight, it's not so much the track that can't handle the weight it's that you need a longer train and typically they try to keep them within the length of signals (the distance between them is dictated by line speed among other things) as tripping two signals causes all sorts of problems, the system/signal man thinks two trains are about to hit each other.
Double Decker carriages have been proposed for a while, but due to issues with Tunnels, etc have always been seen as FAR too expensive for the money invested even moving the high tension cables up an inch or two would be crazy amounts of money add the cost of the Accessibility modifications to stations to allow wheelchair access to both levels of the carriage and the cost quickly mounts up (the implementation of wheelchair elevators was seen as a space hog and would add too much weight iirc ) as for why they wont, the reasons are not just about Cost, but also because the Government wants a 'look what we did for you' to the public ( same as the 3rd heathrow runway ) Also because with how expensive its going to work out to be, chances are only they will really be on it ( thus keeping them away from us common folk ) Honestly the entire network needs investment, but they cant afford to stop things and fix the problems due to the public uproar large scale stoppages cause. Birmingham New Street is a PRIME example of this, if they could close the entire station they could of done its rework in a month, but because they had to work around it while it was open, it took the better part of 5 years and they are still not 100% done with what they have managed to achieve, which was only 1 out of the 3 major problems the station wanted to fix ( the other 2 things they wanted to do was a Point to Point electrical upgrade, meaning all the signals, power cables, etc to be replaced, and moving everything into a new Signal facility replacing both the Birmingham Signal Box AND The Aston signal box. and they also wanted to Bore an extra pair of tunnels to allow more trains in / out of the station ( all of the platforms are fed by 5 tracks on either end, which causes quite abit of congestion ) but both were seen as too costly ( especially the boring of tunnels as they would need to bore directly under the city, and there are other tunnels and stuff they know is down there.
Had quick look and found a trainy site talking about them back in 2018. https://www.railway-technology.com/features/seeing-double-uk-ready-embrace-double-decker-trains/ I wonder what happened? Sounds like they were/are being designed to be compatible with our current infrastructure.
