One month on from the cancellation of HS2, CILT has assessed the implications of the decision and today publishes its conclusions and recommendations as a Ten Point Plan:
We must establish what went so badly wrong with HS2 and learn the lessons. Our recommendation is that a well-informed independent inquiry should be set up, led by the individuals who delivered HS1 on .me and under budget, supported by seasoned rail professionals.
Demand for transport will grow in the future as the economy recovers and expands. More capacity will be needed on the main north-south routes. At the same .me, we need to decarbonise long distance transport to meet climate change imperatives and our legal obligation of Net Zero 2050. Countries across the world are investing in high-speed rail to provide sustainable inter-urban transport capacity and it is not plausible that the rest of the world is going in the wrong direction. We thus recommend in the strongest possible terms that the alignment of HS2 Phase 2 be protected against future needs and not abandoned as Government proposes.
Without HS2 Phase 2, the West Coast Main Line (WCML) north of Lichfield will, as it stands, be dysfunctional and cannot provide the much-needed connectivity improvements for the North, Wales and Scotland. There are several thromboses on this key artery which, if not removed, will do considerable economic damage to the regions and nations, and to UK plc overall.
Most urgent is the major bottleneck between Colwich and Stafford, which will have a highly damaging impact on High Speed trains to Manchester, Liverpool, Scotland and North Wales, as well as regional passenger services and freight. The WCML is the UK’s main freight artery and is critical to the supply chains of many businesses in the North and Scotland.
We recommend an urgent review of options to resolve WCML constraints, Colwich-Stafford in particular. These appear to be:
a. grade separation of junctions at Colwich and south of Stafford plus 4-tracking between these two points, tunnelling under the grounds of Shugborough Hall and running across the flood plain of the Rivers Trent and Sow.
b. a Stafford by-pass, from Colwich to Norton Bridge on WCML north of Stafford, potentially using part of the HS2 Phase 2a alignment.
c. complete Phase 2a to Crewe, which has Royal Assent and is already well developed Previous studies have indicated Options a. and b. were significantly inferior to Option c.
The remainder of the £36bn released from HS2 should be spent on infrastructure investment for the long-term benefit of the UK economy and environment. It should not be spent on short-term revenue items which, whilst welcome, will do nothing to address the nation’s strategic infrastructure needs.
Candidate investment schemes should be prioritised objectively and ranked by their Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR), which should be calculated using an internationally approved cost of carbon. Some of the schemes suggested by Government, notably rail electrification and urban rail/tram/bus schemes, are likely to score well in this regard but others – including some trunk road schemes – may not.
We welcome the decision to go ahead with Midlands Rail Hub and the Ely/Haughley Junction capacity enhancements. We also welcome the proposal to electrify and enhance the Hope Valley line between Manchester and Sheffield and the routes between Sheffield, Leeds and Hull. Both will benefit freight customers as well as passengers. A focus on freight and logistics was noticeably absent from the HS2 announcement and we recommend that much greater emphasis is placed on this economically vital sector.
Specifically, we recommend that the remaining single-track sections on the route to Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest container port, should be doubled and that the Felixstowe to Midlands and North (F2MN) route should be electrified throughout. This would significantly improve supply chain efficiency for businesses in the Midlands, the North and Scotland and reduce their carbon footprint substantially.
We further recommend that another 600 route miles across the UK should be electrified, as set out in our Electrification Strategy published earlier this year. The whole programme is calculated to cost under £2bn – barely 5% of the £36bn released from HS2 – and could be spread over 20 years. It would allow c.95% of rail freight to be electrically hauled, with zero carbon emissions, encourage modal shim of long-distance HGV hauls and generate well over £2bn of private sector investment. It would also permit significant electrification of passenger services across the UK, delivering further economic benefits and decarbonisation.
Full Assessment
CILT remains deeply disappointed at the cancellation of HS2 north of Birmingham and believes this will do considerable harm to the economies of the North and Scotland. Instead of investing in the UK’s major infrastructure scheme, a third of the money is to be spent on populist short term tactical measures which, whilst welcome, will do nothing to address the nation’s strategic infrastructure needs.
Furthermore, any recognition of the enormous economic and social benefits to previously deprived areas brought about by High Speed rail investment, as clearly evidenced by the significant boost to the economies of East Kent towns since the introduction of domestic services on HS1, appears to be entirely absent on the part of Government.
We hope that an incoming administration will reinstate the long-term strategy underpinned by HS2 and proceed with, at least, phase 2a as quickly as possible. It is Phase 2a that delivers key benefits for longer distance journeys north of Crewe and provides much of the additional capacity needed for the WCML. Phase 2a has already been approved by Parliament, having received Royal Assent in early 2021, so whilst the timing of work remains a matter for government, cancellation requires parliamentary approval otherwise the powers to build will remain.
We also believe that with so much detail already examined and approved by parliament, government should, as a minimum, retain this part of the scheme for removing a significant bottleneck to assist the transfer of freight onto rail and the UK meeting its net zero targets for transport. Whether it would need to be at the same speed specification as HS2 should be for a later administration to decide.
Nevertheless, it is important to consider the implications of Rishi Sunak’s announcement and determine how we might best move forward. The first priority must be to ensure that nothing is done to prejudice the possibility of using the land for future rail schemes, including proceeding with phases 2a and 2b at a future date. It is imperative that land which was acquired is not sold off and that the routes are reserved against future need. To do otherwise would be fundamentally wrong and work against long-term infrastructure requirements.
WCML Impact and Op5ons
The biggest operational impact of HS2 cancellation is the perpetuation of bottlenecks on the West Coast Main Line (WCML), between Colwich and Stafford and between Winsford and Warrington. Both contain 2-track sections which severely limit capacity and Colwich-Stafford is also bedevilled by junctions at which trains have to cut across each other on the flat, creating conflicting moves and congestion. Phase 2a solves the Colwich-Stafford problem and should thus be reinstated to enable the WCML to function efficiently and provide capacity for freight growth: WCML is much the most important freight artery in the UK.
In the absence of phase 2a, the only options would appear to be a Stafford by-pass line, potentially using the phase 2a alignment in part, or grade separation of the junctions at Colwich and Whitehouse, just south of Stafford, and four-tracking the 3.5 miles between these points, including Shugborough tunnel (under the grounds of Shugborough Hall). Part of this route also passes through residential areas and across the flood plain of the Rivers Trent and Sow. It would thus very probably encounter significant local opposition to any land-take required, as well as the potential environmental impacts of such works. Taking residential land, managing environmental impacts and building a significant tunnel will be costly and may not be much cheaper than proceeding with phase 2a, at least to a point north of Stafford.
In 2008, before HS2 had been proposed, Network Rail recognised the criticality of the Colwich-Stafford constraint on both passenger and freight growth and drew up outline plans for a Stafford by-pass, using both new and existing infrastructure. Work on alternatives to Phase 2a, undertaken by Atkins in 2015, concluded that the best performing options used part of the proposed Phase 2a alignment to by-pass the Colwich – Stafford bottleneck. Even the low-cost option, based on Network Rail’s original Stafford by-pass proposals, required the construction of 18km of new railway and a new grade separated junction south of Colwich.
The 2015 report concluded that, whilst between £1.1bn and £1.8bn could potentially be saved compared to the original (2011) Phase 2a £2.7bn construction cost, the alternatives:
did not provide the same overall capacity as Phase 2a.
could not provide similar journey .me savings unless substantial sections of new railway are provided.
delivered lower economic benefits and revenues and had lower BCRs.
The construction of the medium and low-cost options would also cause more disruption to the existing rail network than Phase 2a and introduce a greater risk of long term poor operational performance.
North of Crewe, phase 2b including the Golborne link would have relieved the WCML and allowed capacity for growth. Without this, the 2-track sections between Winsford and Harpord (5 miles) and Acton Bridge to Weaver Jn (2.5 miles) are a choke on capacity. Given urban geography and topography, the only options are new 2-track alignments looping around to the east of Winsford and the west of Harpord, including substantial new viaducts over the River Weaver in each case. Again, these will be very costly and disruptive during construction, which must be set against the cost of phase 2b including the Golborne link.
Euston HS2 station’s opening had already been deferred to 2035, and government has now announced that the delivery of HS2 Euston will be delivered by a government-appointed development company and will only be taken forward if private funding is secured. This potentially results in a significant reduction in the benefits of HS2 if trains terminate at Old Oak Common – as well as impacting on London’s transport network by overcrowding Elizabeth Line trains into Paddington and beyond.
Service pattern and rolling stock
Cancellation of phase 2a and 2b means the current order for 200m non-tilting rolling stock is sub-optimal both in terms of journey .me and capacity, given that the current tilting Pendolino fleet is optimised both for the sinuous nature of the WCML and existing platform lengths, which can mostly accommodate 265m 11 car trains. Replacing existing 11 car 265m trains with shorter 200m sets will exacerbate existing overcrowding whilst simultaneously stifling the growth that reducing journey times by 30 minutes on key corridors such as Manchester to London would otherwise generate.
Ideally new 400m platforms to accommodate 2 x 200m coupled trains would be constructed at all locations served by HS2 trains on the existing network, but this will be costly. As an alternative, the option of 250m (10 car) HS2 train sets should be considered, although would fail to optimise use of the 400m platforms at HS2 stations which are currently under construction. We need to rethink services and rolling stock, so they are both more beneficial and more flexible – and make optimum use of available capacity on WCML north of Handsacre Jn. This will require a rigorous analysis of the required infrastructure and connectivity so that the remaining benefits of a truncated new line can be maximised. CILT will be evaluating the options for service pattern and fleet composition in the next month or so and aims to produce a further paper on this by the end of the year.
Use of Released Funding
On a broader scale, if HS2 north of Birmingham is not to progress, the money saved should be invested in measures to improve the UK economy in a way consistent with the legal obligation to achieve Net Zero 2050. Whilst small scale improvements to local roads (e.g., to improve safety) are sensible, major road schemes to increase capacity of the trunk and major road networks will not satisfy this criterion, as they will inevitably encourage an increase in road traffic. Indeed, we cannot identify a coherent over-arching rationale or objective to support the replacement schemes that have been selected, relative to other schemes that have not been included.
Light rail and bus schemes in urban areas are welcome, but the biggest economic and environmental gains come with heavy rail schemes, particularly where they benefit freight as well as passengers. This needs to be considered as part of a national network strategy, not as piecemeal schemes whose benefits can only be realised when other improvements are delivered.
Of the proposed alternative investments, capacity increases on the Felixstowe to Midlands and North (F2MN) route and electrification of the Hope Valley route are strongly beneficial, since these are key freight corridors, for intermodal and construction traffic respectively. Also welcome is electrification of Sheffield to Leeds and Hull, plus Hull to Leeds and the North Wales Coast Line, together with the suggestion (but no more) that Chippenham to Bristol could finally be electrified.
Other similar schemes with a strong business case include doubling the Felixstowe branch, serving Britain’s biggest container port, and the remaining section of single line on the F2MN route, between Soham and Ely. Both are situated very largely in open countryside and would not be unduly costly or disruptive to double.
CILT’s proposals for freight electrification continue to have a powerful case for available funds, starting with a handful of small ‘infills’ as quickly as possible. CILT’s latest work with engineering colleagues on electrification costs suggests that the full 800-mile proposal could be delivered as a 20-year rolling programme at a total cost of around £2bn, or £100m a year. This would include the South Wales Main Line west of Cardiff, to complement electrification of the North Wales Coast line.
Greater clarity is required about proposals for new lines from Liverpool to Manchester and from Bradford to Huddersfield but, in principle, these appear positive, as are the ‘Restoring Your Railway’ and new station schemes. Funding for the Midlands Rail Hub is also welcome, although there are significant unanswered questions about the impact this will have on services passing through the West Midlands, especially freight. A Midlands routeing strategy is a clear need, probably based on investment in the Leamington-Coventry-Leicester route, plus a new east to north curve at Whitacre Junction.
In all these cases, priority for investment funds should be determined primarily by Benefit Cost Ratios (BCR), using an internationally approved cost of carbon. Other factors can be tabled but BCR is the single most powerful indicator of the benefit of an investment to UK plc.