Wednesday the company that owns and maintains Britain's rail routes, Network Rail, announced the results of its study for a new high speed rail line. There is a separate government-established company, High Speed Two, to develop proposals to finance and build the line. Funding will be dependent on government borrowing however the principle of building a new line has support from the Labour government and the Conservative Party. The link between London and Edinburgh is about 330 miles so we are looking at what in the USA might be a regional network. Here is the proposed route with its spurs together with the fastest times from London.
It is important to emphasise that a new line is needed because capacity on the existing network between these cities is already overstretched. Apart from 4 slots an hour, trains would leave London every three minutes.
Network Rail has issued both a very detailed study and a 12 page summary in .pdf format. The summary outlines the business case and the reason for choosing the particular route. I think it important to understand this is no simply an A to F, calling at B, C, D, E route. This is the suggested usage abstracted from the timetable on page 5 of the summary.
From London
to Manchester at 00, 15, 30 and 45 minutes past each hour
to Birmingham at 03, 18, 33 and 48 minutes past each hour
to Warrington and Liverpool at 06 and 36 minutes past each hour
to Preston and Glasgow at 12 and 32 minutes past each hour
to Edinburgh at 21 and 51 minutes past each hour
From Birmingham
to Manchester. Preston and Glasgow at 15 and 45 minutes past each hour
to Preston and Edinburgh at 00 and 30 minutes past each hour
The intermediate stops at Warrington and Preston have been carefully chosen. Warrington is the site of a major development of a business park. Compared to the national and especially regional situation, there is little unemployment and this raises the possibility of the line being used to commute from Liverpool. Preston also has plans for redeveopment and a new business centre. Clearly a high speed rail link would add to the attractions of building these. Note that similar future development considerations prompted the decision to build an intermediate station at Ebbsfleet on High Speed One, the link from London St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel. The study suggests that the London terminal should be near St Pancras although this is not identified as there are various cost considerations. Rejected is a spur to link to High Speed One as the projected demand outweighs the cost. Close proximity of the two termini would, however make interchange possible and this must be one consideration if and when the final route is decided.
This study is intended to be used by the High Speed Two company to inform their decisions but the study sets out a variety of options and this is the most cost effective option. Costs are of course impossible to calculate accurately so to the £20.5 billion estimate of construction, survey, design, program development, planning (zoning regulations) and project management costs; they have added an "uplift" of 66% to take account of the early nature of the scheme's development. That would take the build costs to £34 bn or about $50 bn. For the purposes of developing a cost benefit analysis, they have added a further £7.3 billion for the cost of buying rolling stock and maintaing and renewing the line over the course of 60 years making a total cost over the period of about £41.3 bn
Note that the project involves some 1,500 miles of track. This includes double track with additional lines to allow passing through stations on "express" routes plus the various spurs to the major cities. It would also be completely separated from existing rail and road transport (ie no road crossing over the tracks or points to existing rail) and these would be bridged or tunnelled over. (138 bridges over main roads and railways, 32 bridges over motorways (freeways) and 34 miles of tunnel) Direct comparison of cost per mile with US routes is therefore a bit tricky.
Against that cost of £41.3 bn over 60 years has to be taken projected fare income of £39.4 bn but there is a concomitant reduction in fares on existing routes of £16bn. But in calculating benefits, you do not simply look at the fare income.
The analysis in the new lines study uses the latest government guidelines and modelling for calculating the benefits. It includes things like the value of the time saved by users,the value of time saved by passengers on the existing route and the reduction in overcrowding. Also the value of additional freight paths created on the existing route and the value of the reduction in congestion, accidents and carbon emissions from modal shift.
The wider economic benefits such as productivity improvements and regeneration have not been included in the study or its calculations. These benefits would further enhance the case.
The numbers by 2030:
» 480m vehicle miles saved every year
» 50m hours or over 5,000 years of time
saved by new line passengers
» 43.7m journeys per year would be taken
on the new line – almost 2½ times the
number on the intercity routes out of
King’s Cross
» 3.8m less vehicle journeys per year,
reducing CO2 by 39,000 tonnes
» 3.6m less air journeys per year,
reducing CO2 by almost 250,000 tonnes
» Safety benefits equivalent to 19 lives
saved per year through people using
the train rather than the car
The total of net revenue and benefits over the 60 year period is calculated at a total of £55bn. The benefit is therefore almost £14 billion. To get an idea of how much carbon dioxide the fuel savings represent consider this. The twelve most polluting coal fired power stations in the USA, together with their annual emissions are:
1. The Scherer plant in Juliet, GA -- 25.3 million tons
2. The Miller plant in Quinton, AL -- 20.6 million tons
3. The Bowen plant in Cartersville, GA -- 20.5 million tons
4. The Gibson plant in Owensville, IN -- 20.4 million tons
5. The W.A. Parish plant in Thompsons, TX -- 20 million tons
6. The Navajo plant in Page, AZ -- 19.9 million tons
7. The Martin Lake plant in Tatum, TX -- 19.8 million tons
8. The Cumberland plant in Cumberland City, TN -- 19.6 million tons
9. The Gavin plant in Cheshire, OH -- 18.7 million tons
10. The Sherburne County plant in Becker, MN -- 17.9 million tons
11. The Bruce Mansfield plant in Shippingport, PA -- 17.4 million tons
12. The Rockport plant in Rockport, IN -- 16.6 million tons
That CO2 reduction would make a contribution to helping meet the 20/20/20 EU target if the project were approved soon. Network Rail suggest the lead period for its suggestion for High Speed Two would involve about 5 years in planning and design and a further five years or more in construction. The benefits might start to acrue earlier if, for example, the London to Birmingham and Manchester routes or other sections were available ahead of the whole line.
There are of course good reasons for starting the project. It would provide a stimulus for the building industry which is currently in decline owing to the housing market collapse.
I have alluded to the considerable differences that this project has over the proposals for high speed rail in the USA. Most of these projects are new and a customer base would have to be established. This proposal for High Speed Two is to supplement existing capacity as well as getting people to change from planes and car to rail - probably something easier to achieve in the UK than in the USA. Planning, especially strategic planning like the development of brownfields sites at Ebbsfleet and Preston are regional and national decisions rather than down to cities, the market and developers to decide. The usage proposed is far higher than any US proposal I am aware of. There one train an hour, with the idea of slotting in local commuter traffic, seems to be the norm. Here we are looking at four trains an hour between London and Scotland and another four each hour between London and Birmingham and Manchester - 18 an hour in total over various parts of the line.