Heathrow Airport (UK, west of London)

Devvy

Donor
Just to detract further from the OP (sorry!). As far as the non-general public are concerned, the extra capacity that HS2 gives is more the big winner then the speed.

The public love to see "London - Birmingham in 30 minutes" slogans.

Realistically, Virgin Trains runs 9 express trains per hour - shunt them all onto HS2 and you get 9 extra trains per hours for commuter services on the WCML. Invaluable considering how congested those services are.

As for the Heathrow / Gatwick question. Yes Gatwick is further out, but it's only 30 minutes from London Bridge on the train, which is a hell of a lot closer to central London then Paddington is, so journey times for a lot of London travellers might be easier. Gatwick is also better connected to the rest of southern England by train (Reading / Guildford / Brighton / Portsmouth all have direct services to Gatwick).

If Gatwick takes on OTL Heathrow's role, I think the Silicon (Thames) Valley gets established down the M23 corridor instead for the same reasons - good airport links, London road/rail. Or maybe a M23/M4 mix, but either way some large companies are going to be tempted to base themselves close to the prime airport. I work for a large electronics company in the Thames Valley, and the closeness of Heathrow is a godsend from a business point of view.
 
What you are describing is not a high speed rail line, it's just a new main line. HS lines have to be run as airplanes on rails to make any use of their speed, thus you cannot put the stations too close together and you cannot run slower services on the same line. Big gaps between stations and segregation of services are pretty much compulsory for high speed rail lines.

HS1 already has "slower" regional services running on it and it can hardly said not to be an high speed line.

The number of stations which would make sense on HS2 is very limited, Aylesbury is obviously one, alongside perhaps another one close to Warwick/Coventry and that's it actually.

Not all trains would stop at said interchange stations, only about half of services would with the remainder jetting at 360 km/h between the main stations and population centres.

We also have to bear in mind that while the top speed of the trains will be 360 km/h, their average speed during the entire duration of the journey (a better measure of speed in my opinion), will be much lower than this. If anything it is far more likley to be around 250 km/h.

The mistakes which France did when designing the TGV network were the following:
-"Beet root" stations in the middle of nowhere offering no interchange with the local network.
-No services to central stations along the way.
-Few onward connections to a wider set of destinations.

The second mistake looks set to be made by High Speed Two and in a big way, since none of the proposed central stations in Birmigham, Manchester and Leeds will offer easy and convenient interchanges with the local network.

It would be "easy" to remedy to this problem in Birmingham by building a new low level station in New Street (taking advantage of said station rebuilding). Said stations would be used by High speed services, with most services from London, continuing on to other destinations lik Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and the North, firmly anchoring Birmingham as " hub" of the High speed rail network and creating new routes and extra patronage. A lot of cross country services from the south west could also continue on to the north on high speed lines, using HS2 compatible equipment and provided of course that the Birmingham to Penzance line is electrified. Further increasing the "outreach" of HS2 to huge swathes of Britain.

The same can be said about Manchester, where the need for a low level station in Piccadilly has been obvious since at least the seventies. Services instead termining in Manchester would continue on to Preston, Blackpool and Scotland under this scheme. Providing a much better level of service in the North West and better connections between Manchester and Scotland.

However instead of seeing HS2 as an opportunity to enhance the entire railway network in Britain, we very much risk having an airplane on rails, serving only some population centres and leaving the bulk of the intercity services to their current mediocrity. Since lets face it the £33bn will make it much harder to invest in mass electrification or in gradual improvements of the remainder of the network.
 

Devvy

Donor
It would be "easy" to remedy to this problem in Birmingham by building a new low level station in New Street (taking advantage of said station rebuilding). Said stations would be used by High speed services, with most services from London, continuing on to other destinations lik Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and the North, firmly anchoring Birmingham as " hub" of the High speed rail network and creating new routes and extra patronage. A lot of cross country services from the south west could also continue on to the north on high speed lines, using HS2 compatible equipment and provided of course that the Birmingham to Penzance line is electrified. Further increasing the "outreach" of HS2 to huge swathes of Britain.

While I'm not overly convinced on the argument for intermediate stations at Coventry & Aylesbury (not against, just not overly for yet), I do share your concerns over Birmingham. Arup had a good idea in Brum "Grad Central" which was effectively building the HS2 terminus as a new wing of Moor Street station.
 
Since lets face it the £33bn will make it much harder to invest in mass electrification or in gradual improvements of the remainder of the network.
Perhaps, but I would argue the West Coast Main Line upgrade pretty much killed the case for gradual improvements. It came in massively over budget (something like 5x original costing) but with far less improvements than had originally been planned (125mph not 140mph line speed). A look at the various LU tube upgrades tells a similar story; over budget but under spec. I would put good money it will be a similar story for electrification of the Great Western main lines, it will not come in on budget and compromises will be made (almost certainly on signalling, maybe on the tunnels/bridges as well).

Now of course if you pull the line out of service for several months then you can get the work done faster, cheaper and to a better standard, but that's not really viable politically. Equally a complete overhaul of the rule book would help get work done well, but that would require such radical change across the entire industry (sacking most of the DoT, NR and Trade Union upper management for starters) it's just as unlikely.

Therefore I don't think the option of 'upgrades' was that much of a good idea to start with, so why mourn its loss?
 
Lydd Airport (which at one time was called London Ashford) is too far south from London, and Stanstead is too far north. Of those three options, Gatwick + a domestic airport akin to a *London City Airport probably makes the most sense.

It's Stansted not Stanstead and in Essex. Stanstead is 40 miles away in Suffolk :p (not to mention Stanstead Abbotts in Hertfodshire, Stansted in Kent and Stansted in Hampshire)

Pedantry aside, there are several Stansteds and Stansteads. London Stansted Airport takes it's name from the village where I grew up, Stansted Mountfichet. The name Stansted/Stanstead derives from the Anglo-Saxon for Stoney Place
 
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An ATL that I came across in a book about Heathrow:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_%28hamlet%29#Perry_Oaks_sewage_works

OTL: The sewer from Mogden to Perry Oaks was built west along the Bath Road and then south along Tithe Barn Lane, as at the Wikipedia link here.

ATL: To save distance the sewer is built diagonally across the Heathrow farms (and across the OTL future airport area) from Harlington Corner to Perry Oaks. The Heathrow farmers complain and are ignored. WWII comes. The Air Minister takes one look at the extra cost and work of diverting that sewer (without modern excavators), and decides to build his airport after the war or elsewhere. Particularly if the sewer goes across the planned terminals area.
 
ATL: To save distance the sewer is built diagonally across the Heathrow farms (and across the OTL future airport area) from Harlington Corner to Perry Oaks. The Heathrow farmers complain and are ignored. WWII comes. The Air Minister takes one look at the extra cost and work of diverting that sewer (without modern excavators), and decides to build his airport after the war or elsewhere. Particularly if the sewer goes across the planned terminals area.
Not going to happen. The twin 12" sludge mains were put in 1935 it's true, however they were put inside an existing 9' sewer to save costs. Any saving on distance would be utterly swamped by the extra costs of laying a brand new route.

The route got upgraded a few years ago (ironically enough to make way for Heathrow T5!) so there's quite a few papers on it as it was a fiddly job.
 
Perhaps, but I would argue the West Coast Main Line upgrade pretty much killed the case for gradual improvements. It came in massively over budget (something like 5x original costing) but with far less improvements than had originally been planned (125mph not 140mph line speed). A look at the various LU tube upgrades tells a similar story; over budget but under spec. I would put good money it will be a similar story for electrification of the Great Western main lines, it will not come in on budget and compromises will be made (almost certainly on signalling, maybe on the tunnels/bridges as well).

Now of course if you pull the line out of service for several months then you can get the work done faster, cheaper and to a better standard, but that's not really viable politically. Equally a complete overhaul of the rule book would help get work done well, but that would require such radical change across the entire industry (sacking most of the DoT, NR and Trade Union upper management for starters) it's just as unlikely.

Therefore I don't think the option of 'upgrades' was that much of a good idea to start with, so why mourn its loss?

You have just said it all yourself in that paragraph, the reason of cost overruns has a lot to do with bad management (the railways don't have a "can do" mentality), but also work arrangements and let's face it excessive health and safety laws as well.

With the current situation in Britain, we have to make though decisions with regards to how things are run and there is no escape from either this or paying forever more money. Very sadly neither Cameron, nor Greening nor anyone in government have the balls to take on entrenched interests.
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Aerodrome

The same book contained this ATL: WWII does not happen (e.g. Hitler dies early). (Apart from stirring up so many 747-sized butterflies that their wings shade out the land): Fairey Ltd. moves their factory to Heathrow, as OTL they had been planning. Heston (see Wikipedia link above) becomes London's main airport.

The old small Heathrow airfield may expand, and workers' houses will invade the Heathrow farm area.
 
Very sadly neither Cameron, nor Greening nor anyone in government have the balls to take on entrenched interests.
Well neither did the last mob, indeed arguably they further entrenched said interests with the way they structured Network Rail.

In fairness however the political risk/reward for taking on the rail industry (and it will have to be the whole industry, management and unions, tackling only one side wont cut it) is terrible.

If you revise working practices, re-write the rule book and bring in a more pragmatic approach to safety the very next time there is an accident (and the nature of rail work says there will be, no network the world over is entirely safe) you will be crucified as the industry has it's revenge. Hell I can easily see the RMT pushing for a corporate manslaughter prosecution on the Transport minister responsible just to make a point.

And what's the benefit for all this risk? Maybe after all the fights and 'transition periods' costs might go down, but based on past performance that is far from certain. Costs will get shuffled and delayed certainly, but anything more than that? All in all it's a hell of a down side for a doubtful upside, from a political view point anyway and they are the ones making the decisions.

Far better to just build a new line, which involves almost no-one from the rail industry during construction and so is cheaper, simpler and less hassle all round.
 
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/20534/pages/4404 and http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/20534/pages/4405

1845: ATL: The railway described at this link is built, or its eastern end: branch off an existing line at Knightsbridge, go thru or near Hounslow, Hatton, Heathrow village, Stanwell, and away to the west. Heathrow gets a railway station & can send its produce to market quicker than 14 miles each way trek in horse wagons to Covent Garden market (don't sell at Brentford, their prices are less), but it also attracts suburbia.
 
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/20534/pages/4404 and http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/20534/pages/4405

1845: ATL: The railway described at this link is built, or its eastern end: branch off an existing line at Knightsbridge, go thru or near Hounslow, Hatton, Heathrow village, Stanwell, and away to the west. Heathrow gets a railway station & can send its produce to market quicker than 14 miles each way trek in horse wagons to Covent Garden market (don't sell at Brentford, their prices are less), but it also attracts suburbia.
But that's a quite terrible railway, it's basically London to Exeter but on a far, far worse route than the Great Western Main Line. As best as I can tell the only real city on the route is Salisbury, it appears there was a damned good reason the scheme was abandoned - it's not viable, just another of the 'direct' routes developed during the Railway Mania by people who knew nothing about railways.
 
But that's a quite terrible railway, it's basically London to Exeter but on a far, far worse route than the Great Western Main Line. As best as I can tell the only real city on the route is Salisbury, it appears there was a damned good reason the scheme was abandoned - it's not viable, just another of the 'direct' routes developed during the Railway Mania by people who knew nothing about railways.

What if men realize that, so build only its east end, anticipating the OTL Hounslow Underground Railway branch but on the surface and going a bit further west? Instead of an Underground line under a busy airport, at Heathrow we have a quiet country station with a goods loading platform for cattle and farm produce and market garden produce and fruit. Station perhaps at the north end of High Tree Lane.

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Would the term "no Heathrow Airport TL" include time-lines where Fairey's Great West Aerodrome (sometimes it was named Heathrow Aerodrome) becomes a public airport without getting bigger? Possible events may be:

* Fairey Aviation, who OTL were planning to move their factory from Hayes to Heathrow, are told by Harmondsworth Parish Council to build on land already spoiled by the Heathrow Sand and Gravel Company (just east of the Cain's Lane / Heathrow Road junction) and not on good farmland. (OTL this quarry (for sand and gravel and brickearth, with attached brickworks) started in the early 1930's and got bigger until the airport came in 1944.).

* The Air Minister comes (flies?) to this diminutive (c.200 acres) Heathrow Airport and laments that it is only a scrap of the southeast corner of what might have been but for one stray bean-spiller and whistle-blower unauthorizedly photographing documents and handing out prints of them. Airport space need has to be fitted into Croydon Airport and any RAF bases near London that have a heavy-bomber-length runway, until Gatwick Airport is built. Any attempt after WWII to restart an OTL-sized Heathrow Airport project, wallows for years through public enquiry and protests to plannning consent committees.

* Road traffic increase causes more and more north-and south traffic short-cutting through Heathrow village; men talk of road-widening. Some of the farms and market gardens set up farm shops.

* Someone has an idea to widen Cain's Lane into an emergency runway: tarmac wide enough for airliner undercarriages; roadside hedges and fences and other structures and trees to be low enough to easily fit under airliner wings; a way for it to be closed to traffic when needed as an emergency runway. Thus Heathrow Airport gets a new long runway - sort of.
 
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