Opinion

The challenges of a London terminal for HS2

Lord Berkeley

The most efficient and least disruptive option for a new station at Euston to accommodate HS2 is to redevelop within and over railway lands. Tony Berkeley sets out an outline option that reduces costs and considers the local community.

Politicians, architects, engineers and other ‘opinion formers’ tend to have an obsession with landmark projects, hopefully for which they will be remembered by a grateful nation.  In France, it is normal for a president to leave his mark this way – the Pompidour Centre or the underground Louvre are good examples.

But none of the presidential memorials have been stations for TGVs.  New stations for TGVs are few, perhaps Lille Europe, mainly underground, and Lyon Satolas airport, with some interesting architecture that hides the lack of traffic there.  In most cities, TGVs use existing stations; In Paris, the Gares de Lyon, Nord, Est and Montparnasse, have all had face lifts which make them at least reasonably attractive, and they all use the classic tracks for the last few miles into the centre to avoid the horrendous costs of building a high speed line in built up areas.

"Although they have rightly cancelled the HS2-1 link as being not fit for purpose, they are still supporting the continuation of the HS2 tunnels right into the approaches to Euston station, involving massive demolition and construction on the approaches."

In the UK, our first high speed line station, Waterloo International was an iconic building in its time but, twenty years later, it is an empty shell with only suburban use foreseen in the short term.  So ministers are now focusing on the ‘success’ of the Kings Cross St Pancras developments and wanting to emulate and better these for the HS2 terminal at Euston.  Although they have rightly cancelled the HS2-1 link as being not fit for purpose, they are still supporting the continuation of the HS2 tunnels right into the approaches to Euston station, involving massive demolition and construction on the approaches.

Now ministers appear to want to go back to the original wider layout of the new Euston which extended the station footprint several hundred metres to the west.  This would involve the compulsory purchase of many hundreds of properties and, although the community there does not perhaps have the same cohesive spirit as Somers Town to the east of the station, it is still going to cause massive disruption both to the community as well as to the surrounding area during construction.

The latest idea floated by ministers is also to lower all the tracks at Euston station by perhaps 8 metres so that, with a deck above, there will be a level walk through area right across the station between Cardington Street or even Hampstead Road and Eversholt Street. Of course the track lowering would have to start well to the North of station, possible at the Regent’s Canal, so the cost, disruption to passengers and to the local community would be even greater and last for even longer – up to more than two decades if you then add the timescale involved in widespread development. The Kings Cross Lands show the development period associated with comprehensive renewal, and that is not in an already built-up residential zone as is the case around and north of Euston.

I am told that a ground level deck makes the development so much more attractive to developers that they could fund the massive extra cost of these works. How real is this commitment though?  I am also not sure how the passengers or the local community could be compensated for years of upset. But, given the large size of the footprint of the station (200m wide by perhaps 400m long), surely a deck over the existing station with good escalators, ramps or whatever could be an attraction in its own right, as well as providing access to all platforms along the length of each train, to the Underground, to visitor and retail opportunities and, of course, access to whatever development might be built above?

"We worked on the number of trains that HS2 and the WCML could deliver to Euston, and concluded that, if one diverted some of the WCML suburban services via a new link to Crossrail at Old Oak Common, the remainder of these could be accommodated in the 18 platforms of the existing station."

This is where the scheme developed by Lord Bradshaw and myself with the assistance of consultant Jonathan Roberts, comes in as a perfectly acceptable ‘base case’ against which these various developer dreams can be assessed and coasted.  We started developing it years ago as an alternative to the HS1-2 connection but concluded that, if the Government was dropping the connection, so should we.  We have ideas, but not now as part of the HS2 project. 

We worked on the number of trains that HS2 and the WCML could deliver to Euston, and concluded that, if one diverted some of the WCML suburban services via a new link to Crossrail at Old Oak Common, the remainder of these could be accommodated in the 18 platforms of the existing station. We calculated the turnaround times for different types of trains, and found that at Euston these are currently longer than those for intercity trains at Paddington or Liverpool St. And if anyone really wanted even more trains to terminate at Euston (or an equivalent operating margin), then there is space for probably four more platforms within the footprint.

Some HS2 trains are planned to be 400m long, so the platforms would need extending southwards towards Euston Road.  This would involve demolishing the two towers there, but maybe that would be an advantage.  Over all the platforms there would be this full deck.  Above it, the development potential is there; maybe not quite as wide as if the station footprint was extended westwards, but still reasonably large even by London standards.

Such masterplanning has the potential to unite Bloomsbury and Euston, when allied to Transport for London’s intended ‘place shaping’ for the unloved Euston Road corridor. The deck of course could also be extended north westwards over the main line tracks, if so desired, to the regeneration realm of ‘Camden Unlimited’, via Mornington Crescent (so winning the game!).

We also concluded that the approach tracks with existing grade separation were able to accommodate these additional trains, so the question then became, how to connect the tunnels from Old Oak Common into the WCML with minimum inconvenience in terms of construction hassle, and land take.

"Such masterplanning has the potential to unite Bloomsbury and Euston, when allied to Transport for London’s intended ‘place shaping’ for the unloved Euston Road corridor."

The answer is to use the existing, wider formation west and east of Queens Park station, to reorganise the existing track arrangements. The objective is to enable HS2 to surface in this area, no closer towards Central London, and occupy the present West Coast fast line tracks to and from Euston. The proposed sequence is to take over the lightly ‘Watford local lines’ east of Queens Park as the new ‘Slow lines’, in association with moving most local commuter stopping trains into Crossrail 1 via Old Oak (a route already being planned by Network Rail and Transport for London). In turn that permits the existing slow lines to be used as the new Fast Lines, so releasing the space for HS2.

The benefits of all this are shorter tunnels and no permanent land take on the approaches to or at Euston itself, except southwards.  It follows the French (and German) examples of using classic lines for the last few miles.  It makes very little difference to the journey times, since the trains have to slow down anyway for the terminus, but saves a great deal of money – £1-2 bn.

It also means that, if the Government or developers wish to extend the footprint of the terminus beyond the current boundaries into non-railway land in private ownership, they have to justify this to the local community, London and national politicians. The excellent Kings Cross developments were mainly on railway land; a similar or even better development could be done at Euston on and above the railway land, which is up to a mile long, towards Camden.  Many developers, I am sure, would welcome the quality challenge!

Tony Berkeley is a member of the House of Lords and chiarman of the Rail Freight Group