Talk:High Speed 2

Time for a page of its own

I did this because it feel its about time the High speed 2 deserves its own page as it was taking up quite a lot of room on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_Kingdom#High_Speed_1_.28HS1.29 article.

Construction is soon to happen and we already have enough content to fill out a page, obviously I would be greatfull if people contributed to making this page quite filled out, formal and educational.

Another Option

In terms of journey times, a High Speed line from Birmingham to London covering approximately 100 miles would only reduce journey times by 15 minutes, however a High Speed line from Manchester to Birmingham covering 75 miles would reduce journey times to London by approximately an hour. A high speed line between Manchester and Birmingham utilising existing track connecting Birmingham to London on the West Coast Main Line / Trent Valley would provide a quicker service to London for more people, including the populations of Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds. This would therefore be a more feasible priority. However, in order to operate at high speeds, the appropriate rolling stock needs to be utilised. The Eurostar is the quickest option, and is unable to operate on existing track between Birmingham and London. One option could be to build additional track roughly parallel to the existing West Coast Mail Line / Trent Valley, or utilise the track currently used by Pendolino's in the Trent Valley specifically for High Speed trains including Eurostar. --Minotaur500 (talk) 13:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Scope of article - scheme promoted by HS2 Ltd only?

I have done quite a lot of work on the article today and am considering what the scope for the article should be. I propose that it should be specific to the proposal being promoted by High Speed Two (HS2) Ltd. Other proposals (such as Network Rail's one) should be mentioned briefly but should not be covered in detail here - detailed content should either be developed within the High-speed rail in the United Kingdom article or in a separate article. Any thoughts? PeterEastern (talk) 12:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Great work on the article although I still think we should split the 'proposed route' section up a bit like before. Its a big section, let me know what you thinkJayflux (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not sure what you mean by 'like before' though, I have separated out the discussion about the route from the history of the project and other aspects to avoid a big mush of content. I have been wondering about how to improve the proposed route section which is indeed a bit long but don't have any great ideas. Possibly you would like to have a go? Do lets limit the history section to a brief chronology of the progress of the project itself rather than as a place for a lot of detail about route options. I do think we are going to need a section where the various arguments can be 'aired' - certainly we need a place for a discussion about the pros and cons of linking to Scotland. Also we will need to cover the very poor carbon performance of the proposed network to the midlands - personally there seems little point in replacing flying with something which is just as damaging and which is more expensive! PeterEastern (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have just made some changes to the route section by creating a new section for stations - each one will probably deserve its own section in time - and moving relevant content in these sections. I have also created a section for brief stubs about other proposals (such as the Atkins study and RailTrack proposal) and moved some content there. PeterEastern (talk) 18:44, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

route

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The proposed route is still very much a matter of discussion. The best information seems to be for a 'Y' shaped route to Birmingham with spurs to Manchester and Leeds and then conventional rail to Scotland however the diagram shows a diamond shape with a route across the peaks! It also shows a station for Sheffield although I can find no evidence for that. Can someone edit the route diagram to get it to match the text or find citations to justify the diagram and adjust the text? A second question, how should we show the onward services to Scotland on conventional speed lines? PeterEastern (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• For the above reason the route diagram has been removed. I am placing it in this section for safe keeping! PeterEastern (talk) 09:37, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks peter, I agree the route is still under discussion and is best taking off the article. We wont know about the spur lines until march so no one can say for sure what will be happening. Until then any news i see I will add to the relevant placesJayflux (talk) 13:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Wiki map

I have created a 'wiki map' of the route using UMapper. The route is a quick attempt to interpret the details given in the summary document. Please feel free to refine the map which can then be exported as KML and the resulting map is available CCBYSA. PeterEastern (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

On brief reflection possibly UMapper should be a source of the KML version but someone should do an SVG version for the article itself which allows more people to edit it without using proprietary tools. PeterEastern (talk) 13:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I have updated the map using a new clearer basemap but it would still be good to have a more informative map showing tunnelled sections, the route of high speed 1 and the optional routes further north as well as the location of stations for HS2. Btw, the documentation seems to be inconsistent about whether the Leeds spur is part of the 'core network' or not. PeterEastern (talk) 14:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The 'command paper' shows the 'ES-1 diagram core route diagram' showing the core route is London-Liverpool but not to Leeds; however figure 4.6 of refers to the route as a 'Y' but then only shows the Liverpool fork of the Y; figures 4.1 to 4.4 do show the Y with the Leeds spur as core; the 'Leaflet' only shows the detailed route London-B'ham. I guess we need to read this stuff properly, however there is a question about how to show the route to Leeds is a detailed route has not be published. I will mark the map on the article as 'London-Birmingham' route. PeterEastern (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The map wiki is not working well. I have updated it twice and lost my work, possibly because someone else had it in edit mode at the same time? I have also had to remove some graffiti from it once - I guess it has not got safeguards about two people editing at the same time. Also, UMapper doesn't seem to have a change history and revert which is a big problem for administration. Possibly it will have to be locked it down soon. PeterEastern (talk) 14:53, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Northern trains take a strange route

The article replete with detail says that HS2 would take the Greenford Branch Line. That seems to reflect either unintelligent planning or careless editing. This map (said to locate the proposed route to within five metres at some points) has it running up the New North Main Line.--SilasW (talk) 10:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Fazeley Street/Curzon Street

Despite what Lord Adonis said and all of the newspapers faithfully parroted, he report actually explicitly dismisses the idea of using the Curzon Street site. The actual station is referred to as "Fazeley Street" in the report and, whilst adjoining the old Curzon Street site, will not occupy the same space as the former station. This needs to be made clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.196.116.196 (talk) 10:49, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

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We should use Curzon Street

Firstly note that the actual roads Fazely Street and Curzon Street are extremely close.

HS2 considered separate station sites at Curzon Street and Fazely Street, slightly different but overlapping/adjacent. Their final preferred site was the one they termed Fazeley Street.

The govt in their command paper adopted the hs2 preferred site for the station, but called it Curzon Street. There is no discrepancy over the site itself which is exactly the one preferred by hs2 (as Fazeley St).

Note that the command paper post dates and is a response to the high speed 2 report. Therefore Curzon St is the more up to date name. Also it has been referred to as curzon street in the press. For example see:

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-transport-news/2010/03/11/birmingham-s-eastside-plans-must-change-to-accommodate-high-speed-rail-65233-26014785/

And by MPs debating in the house of commons:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100311/debtext/100311-0009.htm

I don't think I've seen any reference to it in the media as Fazely Street. Therefore I think Curzon St is the name in general use and likely to stick. We should refer to the station as Curzon St, while noting the alternative name of Fazeley St.

I altered the article in accordance with this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.11.90.64 (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Bad references to DFT source

The article has multiple references like this <ref>[[#Dft2009a|Department for Transport (2009a)]], pages 16 paragraphs 37</ref> First and most important, these lead nowhere. There is no section entitled Dft2009a.
If whoever did this had in mind multiple references, then see the ref name="shortname" style. But if every reference should be unique (which seems likely, as they are to different pages), then they should use the conventional reference style.
This is an embarrassing faux-pas in a very topical article and needs to be repaired ASAP. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

These refs work fine for me. Adambro (talk) 20:45, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're already at the bottom of the page, the browser can't scroll you any closer! (Experiment with making your browser window one line of text high, clicking, and seeing if you get a different result). —Sladen (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree that it takes you to the bottom of the page. But it doesn't take you away to the reference article, which is what it should do and which is what happens in every other article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I see that WP:CITESHORT approves of this way of doing things, and that someone has just brought the article into compliance with it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Sure, the citation format used for some references in this article is CITESHORT which seems to be the appropriate way to do it when there are many references into the same source documents however we had not implemented it quite right and I have now added a 'Notes' section heading as per guidance. I am still not clear if one should mix the two formatting systems in the same article and the examples given are note very clear on this. PeterEastern (talk) 21:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Old Oak Common: link to Heathrow and Plymouth

If I've read the DfT paper correctly through all the hand waving, I think that the link to Heathrow and the Great Western line is at Old Oak Common and not after it, as shown in the schematic. Could someone else check? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The diagram[1] shows the proposed interchange station at Old Oak Common with the Great Western Main Line (with trains towards Paddington railway station in one direction and trains towards Heathrow Central railway station and the West Country in the other. Could you be more detailed about what you believe to be incorrect (the relevant PDF is [2]). —Sladen (talk) 14:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)