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Old Oak Common - mega station starts to build (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Mex to c/rail

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[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Those behind the project say it will become one of the best connected stations in Europe.

Will there be a Eurostar line stopping at this station, or another line connecting other European cities (France, Belgium, Netherlands)?

Currently, trains crossing the channel have their terminus at St Pancras. Such stops probably require extra security, customs, and immigration officers since these train cross the EU-UK border. So I fear St Pancras would remain be the only station with those direct connections.

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nope, HS2 was cunningly designed to be completely separate from HS1 and the channel tunnel because why would anyone want to go to a place not london? If you are crazy and want to go to the mainland, you need to take HS2 to london, take the tube across town, and then go through customs and get onto the Eurostar.

Also there is apparently no point in designing them to connect because customs checks are physically impossible to do outside of london, which is why there are no international airports or ferry terminals that exist outside of London, and you definitely couldn’t do them on the train like anyone else.

[–] zerakith@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Technically it was precisely designed to be connect directly to HS1 avoiding Euston/St Pancras altogether before the bean counters decided the tunneling was too expensive then it was designed to at least interconnect with an easy interchange with HS1 (E.g. through a new bridge between stations) then the beans counters decided that bothering to get into London at all was too expensive. Finally, we have a decision that half the number of platforms we need in London will be built ensuring we either cripple it's performance for decades or end up spending even more retrofitting the station at a later date.

Thanks Treasury!

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago

Ohh value engineering, why do a job properly when you can do a much worse job for slightly cheaper and then get paid a lot more again to fix it.

[–] Highstronaught 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My hope is that as soon as it opens, it becomes very clear that more platforms are needed so they build a new station, connecting hs1 and 2 at the same time with said station.

[–] zerakith@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

I suspect that's some thinking internally too. Wait until you have more political capital.

Unfortunately, at the moment the government isn't even committed to going past Birmingham so at the moment we paid a lot of money to slow down the west coast main line in order to relieve capacity for Milton Keynes. So I guess in terms of priorities I'd say getting it up to north Scotland more important

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago

"You will get off your HS2 train here, you'll step out into a light, airy, open, modern concourse. "

Pictures of a station that looks like anything built in the last 25 years.