#Railnatter 

Thanks for including Ireland! I would love a high-speed Dublin Cork line, but probably the most realistic hope is for high-ish speed along the existing route, with more of it 4-tracked, and all of it electrified, and maybe a couple of grade separated junctions. I think 200km/h is probably achievable on the current alignment, which would be a huge improvement considering there aren't many places a train can get above 100km/h at the moment. Dublin-Belfast as a true high speed line I agree should be achievable, and there should be EU and cohesion funding available for such a project. There are proposals for adding tracks to bypass some of the bottlenecks currently, but under current proposals much of the routes would be shared with commuter traffic, and would not be true high-speed. I think dedicated high speed tracks running the entire route and trains running at 300km/h is needed to persuade people the train is worth it. At present the train takes over 2 hours, which is longer than it takes to drive on the motorway. It's still full most of the time, but probably a fairly low percentage of people traveling between the cities. Adding the new high-speed line into the new Grand Central Station would be essential. Hopefully that won't need too much rearranging. At the Dublin end, I think it needs to connect to Connolly, but I would really like to also see it serve Heuston for connections to the rest of the country, so I'd like to see it run in a tunnel. If you haven't seen it, you should look up the "All island strategic rail review", which has some interesting ideas for new routes and increasing capacity on existing ones.

Midday Coffee for me (in the Far East) :) Glad to see the Plymouth-Exeter HS route as a Dawlish-avoiding mainline - I have several MS Paint files with exactly that! Have you thought about a lower Severn Tunnel (SE of Newport-S of Portishead) that comes up east of Bristol and allows through running from Cardiff? Great episode and as fun as promised - even if you did Portsmouth the disrespect of giving Southampton a HS station and not one to Pompey. I get it, but it still hurts!

My favourite train is the 222 (hence the profile picture!) and I am so glad you included it 👍

Love this for Sheffield

Re the 'Water feature that is the Severn Tunnel' worth noting that the bulk of the water is not leakage from the Severn but from an underground river which pours around 13 million gallons of fresh water per day into the sumps at Sudbrook. A new tunnel up/down stream of the existing would no doubt meet the same issue as the underground source of the river is not (to my knowledge) known other than the flow rates align with melt ice in Europe.

One area needed for decarbonising transport is giving more compelling incentives for freight operators to use electric traction- AFAIK freight operators are actively moving away from electric traction towards diesel usage

Interesting that you favour Temple Meads over Parkway for the Bristol leg ,more room at Parkway for expansion and the ground is better to build on/in ,also with regard to crossing over to Wales a bridge above the line of the tunnel could well give rise to a joint infrastructure project with the opportunity for tidal barrage generating badly needed power from what is the second largest tidal range in the world.

Rather than using a redundant rail tunnel, the National Grid would highly likely prefer to construct a new smaller tunnel for the HV cables as in the London area.

Fun Fact from someone living in Tokyo: The Ueno Shinkansen station is extremely underground In addition, AFAIK all of the new Chuo Shinkansen stations will be underground as well

Gold episode, thank you

Thank you @Gareth Dennis for the great video, i have been looking forward to this one; it was really interesting. I do think an argument could be made for High-speed tack running through Somerset, taking into account areas where future development should be pushed for, e.g. Taunton and Bridgwater allowing a station to act as part of a larger incentive to develop the area (I would approach it like a hub station at Midlands and Gloucester. This would also allow for local connections from Burnham-on-Sea, Wellington, Glastonbury, and others to tie in - Possibility Yeovil once the local network gets built out more.). The network also feels rather London-centric for the SW due to the lack of connections from Exeter to Bristol.

One thing I would change is I would have an interchange with the WCML south of Warrington (possibly at Crewe station) allowing some trains to run Warrington-Wigan-Preston then as well (with through tracks) allowing Liverpool trains to head north without going through Manchester. There is a pretty heavy catchment in this area spreading to Southport, St Helens, outer Liverpool and Chester and its where the peak crowding on the West Coast service currently occurs (with half the passengers at these stations being long distance rather than short distance). The line is pretty straight already and just needs the cutting/viaduct alignment widening for four tracking the two tracks north of Wigan which is minimal demolition as it isnt very built up alongside. This should be done by first building a pair of freight/suburban station tracks parallel to WCML North mirroring the route then flying junctions to sort the congestion in Warrington area. At the end you are left with upgraded 240km+ tracks for high speed services alongside existing slower lines that will be primarily freight but can also have some stations on them servicing new suburban stations like Standish, Golborne, new Newton Le-Willows platforms servicing North-South in addition to East-West, etc.. Alternately South of Wigan could be done by mirroring the Japanese approach of stacking lines on a twin deck viaduct, grade separating the two high speed directions with no additional land required (possibly closing the Wigan-Warrington stretch for 2-3 years for an intensive build program) while alongside at grade you have the slower freight/suburban lines. E.g. Top deck high speed tracks up, mid deck high speed tracks down, then ground level two freight tracks, with passing loops where required. As a bonus this would also take at least 4tph out of the junctions in central Manchester and allow a possible boost of Scotland-Birmingham capacity beyond the 1tph from each city you have diagrammed. On the question a viewer asked; whether people would be happy to change I think the issue is long distance travellers are more likely to be carrying luggage and so less happy to change than someone just making a tube/commuter connection (I wouldn't be surprised if you lost 25% of your potential passengers between two points for every change of train required on that journey).

Hi Gareth, here is my suggestion for a new high speed connection from HS2 to the South coast. I would suggest building a new 50mile high speed line starting with a new triangular junction on the existing HS2 line in the Colne Valley, then follow the alignment of the M25 and M3 to Micheldever, south of Basingstoke to join to the SWML. An intermediate station would be built at Heathrow Airport. Tunnel under the houses of the folk living in the Frimley/Camberly area. South of Micheldever, the rail corridor through Winchester looks wide enough to four track the whole of the South West Mainline between Micheldever and Easteigh. The section of the SWML from Eastleigh to St Deny's Junction in Southampton has some passive provision for four tracks, so make use of this. Build a new station in the New Road area of Southampton on the eastern side of Southampton tunnel. Upgrade the Eastleigh to Fareham line, including double tracking Fareham tunnel, to allow running to Portsmouth. This line is shorter and hopefully cheaper than the scheme you showed in the video.

PRO Crew comment: One reason I think that high speed rail should go from HS2 to Crew is that the existing mainlines go to Crew. Our high speed network can not all be built in five minutes. And if we build it in total isolation it will take 10 or 15 years to open. But if we build high speed rail in a bunch of modules that connect into existing railway network nodes, we can be building beyond Crew, at the same time we are commissioning and opening the line to the south of Crew. Gettning sections of our high speed rail network open faster has two key benefits: * It means we can start to gain some of the benefits of high speed rail as soon as possible and * We can start to show more passengers how rail upgrades are improving InterCity journeys and local journeys. The second thing is probably more important, as small sections of high speed rail that create capacity for local improvements can be marketed as "Using capacity released by high speed rail" and will turn skeptical people into supporters of something they can see is working.

I suspect phase 2a will go ahead, plus they did say they would pursue other alternatives, quoting Andy streets and Burnham's alternative, which is HS2 b altered a bit.

The area you said was going to be a shopping centre in Belfast is actually planned to be a new central bus and railway station for a city. Not sure is that a positive step or not in your view.

I can't believe it took me this long to watch a Rail Natter on a train this feels right lol

Thanks, some interesting comments and ideas. In regard to Ireland, have you seen the draft All-Island Strategic Rail Review prepared by Arup for the Dublin and Stormont governments? Given the scale, density, distribution and nature of population and economic activity on the island of Ireland, a much improved and extended mixed-traffic solution (200 km/h) is more appropriate than a full high-speed railway. Interestingly, it proposes a Dublin-Belfast railway very similar to yours, but falls short of recommending a major hub at Dublin Airport, which is by far, the busiest airport on the island, bearing in mind that any fixed link to Britain is very unlikely to be feasible for a very, very long time, and consequently air travel will continue to be of great importance regardless of climate aspirations.

The Swiss has a superb 100% electrified network, without high speed, so high speed is the merely the topping on the cake

If you are going to go into "Euston-St Pancras-Kings Cross Station" on a west-to-east alignment, you might as well follow Crossrail from Old Oak Common and have a high-speed rail station at Paddington. I think that Paddington will become less relevant to long-distance travel, once we have high speed rail, but with London's railways having far too many terminal stations that are not in one place, this would help avoid congestion on Crossrail.

Sheffield Victoria is also in a very deprived part of the city, it depends what you think about agglomeration theory I suppose

I assume that if we stick to this for high speed services we would also need expanded mixed traffic services along the south coast in particular- in particular the Bournemouth to Exeter gap would also warrant a regular service to cover towns such as Bridport and Sidmouth, whereas east of Southampton the network is a mess with regards to going between non-adjacent urban areas (e.g. North Kent to Brighton, Southampton to Hastings, other similar journeys)- seems to me like root and branch change is needed to create effectively a South Coast Mainline

Great episode as always enjoy your alternate timeline and fantasy engineering videos.

Think its nearly impossible to fit HS platforms at Cardiff Central. The station is already over capacity before the South Wales Metro goes operational. Also the north of the station has been completely redeveloped and the south side currently has a major development under construction. There isn't any room near to the station that isn't already developed or will be in the next 10 years. The only way I can see that new platforms could be added is through stacking. Below likely impossible due to poor ground conditions. Above very difficult due to existing listed station buildings and would hamper plans for an upgrade of the station. Love the idea of a replacement Severn Tunnel, absolutely essential regardless of HS in my eyes. I notice you didn't touch on the fact that you left out the GWML from any HS plans. Do you feel that it is good enough as it is minus a few upgrades/diversions, or is it just not worthwhile building a high speed line from London - Bris/South Wales? Fab video was very excited for this one!

i do think that you need a link from Bristol to South West, even if only for xc services, just to get cross country passengers away from London

Drinking Yorkshire Tea From my Green Signals mug.

South Devon Parkway station at Buckfastleigh, with local shuttle service over SDR to Totnes then local stations to Plymouth? Taunton would likely still get through trains to London via Bristol and B&H, maybe with a few more stops on the latter, but it could still be attractive. Bristol to London would remain wholly on existing infrastructure. I still think long distance XC trains are highly likely to run through from the HS infrastructure to extremities in south west (for example).

Four carriage trains having an extra carriage added on, kind of reminds me of the Jubilee Line Extension and London Overground, where they bought short trains, waited for them to be packed like sardines and then obviously went to whoever hands out the money for buying stuff and said: "See: We told you the trains would not be long enough!" and got more money. The same thing happened with the DLR, which was built on the cheap for 2 car trains, that originally looked like a ghost train ride. And then had to be upgraded again and again and again. I think we need to have a Central Government that actually does things properly the first time.

Via Stoke to Crewe would be difficult with the line through Kidsgrove and Alsager (and the geography from Stoke to Crewe via an alternative route being.. close to impossible). Stoke to M’cr avoiding Crewe would be pretty much impossible too with the viaducts north of Congleton and would do nothing for Chester and North Wales. The geography around Stoke just isn’t great for expansion despite the obvious need.

bristol/dif to london? and also 4tph shef to manny

I think the high speed rail line into Liverpool should continue under the Mersey and onto Wales. Liverpool is far to east-facing and could be connected a lot more effectively to Wales. (I also think that it would be cheaper to put train storage areas west of Liverpool. A traincare depot in the Wirrel or North Wales could provide new job opportunities.)

Complete novice here, but can someone please explain the difference in the European and Japanese style modelling and what adaptations need to be made to pick one? Is there any references I can refer to to read up more on this?

Many of the proposed high speed stations are far too small for the capacity, designed as an afterthought and never really integrated as part of the planning of our ever growing urban landscape, with little care to land use and ease of access ie civilian and workforce safety. As a consequence tunnelling track and stations underground is being used as a stopgap when really HS2 ought to have been an opportunity to reassess our entire urban rail geography. Japan and France clearly prioritised public transport infrastructure in the run up to the first Tokyo Olympics and the oil embargo and built their high speed railway quicker than our parliament could ever order a curry, and the track and stations are far more tidy whereas our railways is in such a decline that we will never raise our profile in building critical national infrastructure. This as a result of our antiquated democracy is why I have been out and about fighting for electoral reform.

Any merit in Sunderland/Newcastle to Carlisle extension to give some extra capacity and link to Edinburgh/Glasgow from Tyne and Wear, Teesside and more?

Been away, just caught up. I live on the SWML between Clapham and Woking. I'm a bit confused about your south west route proposal. I assume it would be a tunnel to Clapham, but then what are you proposing beyond that? As you say, the current SWML is more or less full, so would you make it 6 tracks on the surface, destroying 1000s of suburban homes and businesses, or are you proposing to tunnel further out of London, and if so, where would you come up to the surface? Woking? I don't think you'd ever manage to get a surface line built any closer into London than Woking. After Woking, maybe. Also how would Crossrail 2 fit into your plan? That already proposes building a tunnel from Wimbledon, through Chelsea, which would free up some suburban capacity, but probably not enough to help you out with your idea.

Will the West Yorkshire Metro be a rapid transit, to match Vancouver and Copenhagen, extending to the whole region, or a slow battery electric streetcar/tram only in the he inner city areas of Bradford and Leeds?

I could not be present for the live session but I wonder how you reconcile many of the routes through connerbations being alongside existing routes into City Centres when there has always been the matata that HS build has to be new land to avoid disruption to existing services. Should some of the connnerbations be 'skirted round', and served by local metro services rather than focusing on getting to city centres? There could be a danger that build costs for 'the final 2 miles' exceed significantly the build costs for the main route - the HS2 problem of not starting in the North!! (I realise this is but a pipe dream 😎)

edinburg-glasgow hs line trains should be either edinburgh-ayrshire and-or glagoe-newcasyle-sunderferland/ scarborogh -hull serbices.

where do you sujest comnnection to the western channel ferries ve at poole or south hamptin south hanpton would also get ilse of wright and channel island ferries but be vey expebsive. a;so why not londin bypass line via heathrow and the army headquateters at aldershot.

why are ship better the planes for overseas trade.

Disappointing to be suffering from High Supply but Low Demand

Better regional connectivity with electrification is required for the wealth of the nation. The HS2 line mainly benefits a minority of rich commuters from Birmingham to London under the guise of creating more capacity on the WCML, which doesn't stack up as a wealth creating policy for the whole country.

Please have a look at HSUK as a huge amount of energy has gone into improving regional connectivity North of Birmingham.

Is a high speed infrastructure necessary to create capacity on the traditional rail network. However, there is not enough traffic to justify electrification - cannot be right. Surely, it is necessary to electrify the existing network to increase capacity to match Switzerland.

It seems HSUK has been dismissed as too ambitious, so why not move the discussion to the programme for the electrification of the existing network.

The uk Government is not prepared to invest borrowed money in the electrification of the existing network so why are we considering a high speed network?

i do not think irealand is either ritch enough or desily populated enogh to afford true highspeed rail wothit with a connecting tunnel to scotland or wales also dublin zirport need a station to many american visit to forvethem to go to lmanchester and the back east.

Is the elephant in the room HSUK. Or is it absolute shit?

Berlin Hauptbahnhof en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Hauptbahnhof#:~:text=Berlin%20Hauptbahnhof%20()%20(English%3A,railway%20station%20in%20Berlin%2C%20Germany.