Thursday 29 August 2013

HS2 and the north-south divide

There's been much talk this week about HS2 freeing up capacity on existing rail lines for new services. What hasn't been made explicit, though, is that space on existing lines for new services will only materialise if some ordinary intercity services are axed when HS2 opens.

This map depicts the towns and cities that could, according to HS2 Ltd's own documents, see a downgrading or axing of their intercity services to London as a result of HS2.



To share or embed this map on your own website, click here.

Underpinning the HS2 business case is the idea that most ordinary intercity services to and from London Euston on the West Coast Main Line can be axed when HS2 is completed. Intercity services to London on the East Coast and Midland Main Lines would also be reduced in number.

For towns and cities getting no HS2 services in recompense, though, this will mean fewer direct services to London - or, in the case of many Scottish towns, none at all.

The data for the map is taken from a document published by HS2 Ltd early this year. Its appendix reveals that the £7.7 billion of 'classic line savings' in the HS2 business case are based upon the following towns and cities seeing a worsening of their intercity services to London when HS2 is completed:

West Coast Main Line

Coventry: services cut from 3 to 2 per hour
Stoke-on-Trent: cut from 2 to 1 per hour
Stockport: cut from 3 to 1 per hour
Wilmslow: all intercity services to London axed
Lancaster: cut from 1 per hour to 1 every 2 hours and journey time lengthened
Oxenholme: cut from 1 most hours to 1 every 2 hours and journey time lengthened
Penrith: no services cut, but journey time of all London services lengthened
Carlisle: no services cut, but journey time of all London services lengthened

Midland Main Line

Leicester: cut from 4 to 3 per hour
Nottingham (city centre): cut from 2 to 1 per hour
Derby: no services cut, but journey time of all London services lengthened
Chesterfield: cut from 2 to 1 per hour
Sheffield (city centre): cut from 2 to 1 per hour

East Coast Main Line

Wakefield: cut from 2 to 1 per hour
Doncaster: 77 trains per day are predicted to run by the year 2033 if HS2 is not built, but only 48 per day with HS2 operational.

Scotland

In the small print of its document, HS2 Ltd suggests that all through trains from London to Dundee and Aberdeen would be axed, along with the daily train to Inverness and the service to Glasgow via Edinburgh on the East Coast line.  Passengers travelling between London and stations north of Edinburgh would have to change at Edinburgh. This would mean all of the following losing their direct service to London: Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Montrose, Arbroath, Dundee, Leuchars, Kircaldy, Inverkeithing, Haymarket, Inverness, Aviemore, Kingussie, Pitlochry, Perth, Gleneagles, Stirling and Falkirk Grahamston.


HS2 Ltd's 'Explanation of the service patterns'. The middle column shows that 26 trains would run per day between Scotland and London on the East Coast line if HS2 is not built. The right-hand column shows that only 16 ordinary intercity services would run if HS2 goes ahead, and that 'through trains to Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness are withdrawn'.

It is odd that, despite the loss of traditional intercity services being concentrated largely in the north, the Government still suggests that HS2 will help close the north-south divide!