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HS1 to HS2 link will be needed by 2050

Some contractors want spades in the ground before fully understanding key opportunities to save time and money or increase the long-term value to the client. The Bank Station Capacity Upgrade project demonstrated what can be achieved by a more cooperative approach.

High Speed 2 (HS2) has encouraged its contractors to move along that learning curve and the Atlas Road logistics tunnel between the Old Oak Common station site and the Atlas Road tunnel segment construction site is a good example (NCE, online 13 April).

But there are other opportunities for contractors, the Department for Transport and HS2 to be found during the current two to four-year pause in Old Oak to Euston tunnelling.

The key one is lateral thinking about the longer-term dilemma of platform capacity at Euston. Its originally planned 11 platforms had been designed to match line capacity, 18 trains per hour, including two from Scotland which need longer turnaround times.

That design included a free platform in case any southbound arrivals are more than 10 minutes late (or 40 minutes from Scotland), to maximise the number of on-time northbound departures. The 10-platform alternative reduces capacity to 16 trains per hour and that would be very short-sighted.

The preferable alternative is to make cheap passive provision at Old Oak Common for platforms 11 and 12 at Euston under the planned Crossrail 2 platforms. The east end of Old Oak Common station needs to be tweaked now for that to be a possibility.

But the most expensive works could be deferred until actually needed and are best included in the Crossrail 2 planning process.

The extra HS2 platforms could be used by two or three trains per hour per direction with a single bore feed tunnel, but it would cost only a little more to be designed as a less intrusive HS2 to HS1 link than the previously abandoned proposal.

The advantages include prompting Eurostar to reopen Ebbsfleet or Ashford International platforms, improving Kent’s connectivity.

The short-term aim ought to be a considered report now or shortly after the next General Election.

John Porter (M), email address withheld

The Editor, New Civil Engineer,
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