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The problem with stopping at Old Oak Common is that it would likely worsen end-end journey times for the many passengers travelling to destinations not well ser

The problem with stopping at Old Oak Common is that it would likely worsen end-end journey times for the many passengers travelling to destinations not well served by Crossrail. Euston/Kings Cross/St Pancras are all next door to each other and collectively busier than any other rail station in the country. They are not connected to Crossrail so anyone connecting on from there (Eurostar, east coast mainline, west coast mainline) would be required to make two additional changes, a pain with luggage. And anyone going to Norh or South London on Thameslink, Northern or Victoria lines would have to make an additional change.

chgs 2y ago
Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) But walking with a suitcase from Euston to KGSP isn’t exactly easy anyway. Only benefits to Euston are easy to get to the Victoria and northern lines. Whether that outweighs crossrail is a septye wuruain, maybe for north-south journeys, but probably not for “to London”.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- laurencerowe 2y ago
  > Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) With the exception of Paddington (where presumably most services will stop at OOC), it's going to be easier to connect to any of the other London terminals from Euston than from Old Oak Common. Liverpool St about the same. Waterloo, Victoria, London Bridge direct tube from Euston vs two from OOC. Kings Cross / St Pancras walkable from Euston vs two changes. East/West connections in the UK are often pretty dire, so often the fastest way to get anywhere in the South East from the North West will be to travel via London. Flexible off peak returns are often only £1 more than an off peak single so after I moved abroad, when visiting family and friends around England I would usually find returns from London the cheapest somewhat flexible option to visit everyone. > But walking with a suitcase from Euston to KGSP isn’t exactly easy anyway. I've done this and found that 10 minute walk on the flat much easier than taking a suitcase up three lifts to Liverpool Street mainline station from the Crossrail platform... > Only benefits to Euston are easy to get to the Victoria and northern lines. Whether that outweighs crossrail is a septye wuruain, maybe for north-south journeys, but probably not for “to London”. When I lived in Manchester I used to take the train down to London quite often. Being able to change at Old Oak Common to Crossrail would probably have made about 1/3rd of my trips easier (great for going west, Heathrow or Canary Wharf), but would have made more than half more difficult (most of central, north or south London, South East England outside of London), with the remainder much the same (the City, possibly Clapham.) So I definitely don't think being able to change to Crossrail at OOC would be useless, just less useful than changing at Euston.
- lmm 2y ago
  > Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) They might want somewhere on the line towards Watford. Or the Northern line. Or the Victoria line. Or the Circle line. Or Thameslink. Or one of the Great Northern lines. Or they might be travelling to one of the tech offices or hedge funds around that Warren Street area (where e.g. Facebook and Twitter are), or UCL and their big hospital, or the British Library, or that whole King's Cross biomedical campus area, or that big new development around Central St Martins, or the hotels on Russel Square, or the whole Camen Town area, or... It's hard to imagine Old Oak Common will be quite as much of a destination as that central area, at least for several decades. The redevelopment Stratford has been a huge success, probably the best you could hope for, and Stratford has a huge amount of transport interchange options. But it would still be a massive blunder for HS1 to have terminated there rather than continuing into St Pancras.
- willyt 2y ago
  It would make more sense for Euston to be a deep level station and for HS2 to continue onto the mainline to Portsmouth/Bournemouth which have a similar population to Birmingham. I don’t think there will be the stomach to build a new high speed line but they could electrify the current line with overhead wires and replace the current fast trains with HS2 services. If Euston were a through station it would only need 4 platforms rather then 11. Stick another deep station under Victoria while you’re at it.
  - laurencerowe 2y ago
    I think the difficulty of this approach is the huge imbalance in population north and south of London. While the Portsmouth/Southampton/Bournemouth area is around 2M, the Birmingham area is about 5M and HS2 will likely also end up serving trains from Manchester and Liverpool (combined 7M) and Glasgow (2M). There just aren't enough places south of London for all those trains to go.
    - willyt 2y ago
      Yes, you would probably run some trains empty to a carriage sidings south of London to be cleaned and restocked.
mFixman 2y ago
Even if you count Euston+KX+SP as a single station, it's not that much busier in trips HS2 users from Birmingham might want to make since most trains have that as a terminus going north. Realistically, you would only be adding access to the Thameslink and to the Northern and Victoria lines. Old Oak Common has access to the Elizabeth Line, the two branches of the North London Line Overground, and a branch of the Lionesses Line Overground. IMO increasing Overground speed and throughput might be a better use of money than the branch line to Euston.
- jen20 2y ago
  > Realistically, you would only be adding access to the Thameslink and to the Northern and Victoria lines. And HS1 and the Eurostar.
  - mFixman 2y ago
    And the Circle and other cut-and-cover lines. Nevermind, I wrote that comment before my morning coffee hit.
    - jen20 2y ago
      In fairness though, the best destination for an HS2 would clearly be St Pancras, not Easton - connections you can make with a suitcase are what make rail palatable vs flying or driving. There is a special place in hell for whoever put stairs at the entrance to the Circle line in St Pancras!
chippiewill 2y ago
HS2 isn't meant to connect you with any north going services in London like ECML and WCML - it's too niche to be justifiable. You're meant to benefit on those journeys from reduced pressure on the WCML and other north-bound services.

chgs 2y ago

Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) But walking with a suitcase from Euston to KGSP isn’t exactly easy anyway. Only benefits to Euston are easy to get to the Victoria and northern lines. Whether that outweighs crossrail is a septye wuruain, maybe for north-south journeys, but probably not for “to London”.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
laurencerowe 2y ago
> Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) With the exception of Paddington (where presumably most services will stop at OOC), it's going to be easier to connect to any of the other London terminals from Euston than from Old Oak Common. Liverpool St about the same. Waterloo, Victoria, London Bridge direct tube from Euston vs two from OOC. Kings Cross / St Pancras walkable from Euston vs two changes. East/West connections in the UK are often pretty dire, so often the fastest way to get anywhere in the South East from the North West will be to travel via London. Flexible off peak returns are often only £1 more than an off peak single so after I moved abroad, when visiting family and friends around England I would usually find returns from London the cheapest somewhat flexible option to visit everyone. > But walking with a suitcase from Euston to KGSP isn’t exactly easy anyway. I've done this and found that 10 minute walk on the flat much easier than taking a suitcase up three lifts to Liverpool Street mainline station from the Crossrail platform... > Only benefits to Euston are easy to get to the Victoria and northern lines. Whether that outweighs crossrail is a septye wuruain, maybe for north-south journeys, but probably not for “to London”. When I lived in Manchester I used to take the train down to London quite often. Being able to change at Old Oak Common to Crossrail would probably have made about 1/3rd of my trips easier (great for going west, Heathrow or Canary Wharf), but would have made more than half more difficult (most of central, north or south London, South East England outside of London), with the remainder much the same (the City, possibly Clapham.) So I definitely don't think being able to change to Crossrail at OOC would be useless, just less useful than changing at Euston.
lmm 2y ago
> Why would a hs2 user be connecting on from Euston? Or indeed from St Pancras (other than maybe Kent and Europe) They might want somewhere on the line towards Watford. Or the Northern line. Or the Victoria line. Or the Circle line. Or Thameslink. Or one of the Great Northern lines. Or they might be travelling to one of the tech offices or hedge funds around that Warren Street area (where e.g. Facebook and Twitter are), or UCL and their big hospital, or the British Library, or that whole King's Cross biomedical campus area, or that big new development around Central St Martins, or the hotels on Russel Square, or the whole Camen Town area, or... It's hard to imagine Old Oak Common will be quite as much of a destination as that central area, at least for several decades. The redevelopment Stratford has been a huge success, probably the best you could hope for, and Stratford has a huge amount of transport interchange options. But it would still be a massive blunder for HS1 to have terminated there rather than continuing into St Pancras.
willyt 2y ago
It would make more sense for Euston to be a deep level station and for HS2 to continue onto the mainline to Portsmouth/Bournemouth which have a similar population to Birmingham. I don’t think there will be the stomach to build a new high speed line but they could electrify the current line with overhead wires and replace the current fast trains with HS2 services. If Euston were a through station it would only need 4 platforms rather then 11. Stick another deep station under Victoria while you’re at it.
- laurencerowe 2y ago
  I think the difficulty of this approach is the huge imbalance in population north and south of London. While the Portsmouth/Southampton/Bournemouth area is around 2M, the Birmingham area is about 5M and HS2 will likely also end up serving trains from Manchester and Liverpool (combined 7M) and Glasgow (2M). There just aren't enough places south of London for all those trains to go.
  - willyt 2y ago
    Yes, you would probably run some trains empty to a carriage sidings south of London to be cleaned and restocked.

mFixman 2y ago

Even if you count Euston+KX+SP as a single station, it's not that much busier in trips HS2 users from Birmingham might want to make since most trains have that as a terminus going north. Realistically, you would only be adding access to the Thameslink and to the Northern and Victoria lines. Old Oak Common has access to the Elizabeth Line, the two branches of the North London Line Overground, and a branch of the Lionesses Line Overground. IMO increasing Overground speed and throughput might be a better use of money than the branch line to Euston.

jen20 2y ago
> Realistically, you would only be adding access to the Thameslink and to the Northern and Victoria lines. And HS1 and the Eurostar.
- mFixman 2y ago
  And the Circle and other cut-and-cover lines. Nevermind, I wrote that comment before my morning coffee hit.
  - jen20 2y ago
    In fairness though, the best destination for an HS2 would clearly be St Pancras, not Easton - connections you can make with a suitcase are what make rail palatable vs flying or driving. There is a special place in hell for whoever put stairs at the entrance to the Circle line in St Pancras!

chippiewill 2y ago

HS2 isn't meant to connect you with any north going services in London like ECML and WCML - it's too niche to be justifiable. You're meant to benefit on those journeys from reduced pressure on the WCML and other north-bound services.