PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE. taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE. On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON WEST MIDLANDS) BILL

Transcription

1 PUBLIC SESSION MINUTES OF ORAL EVIDENCE taken before HIGH SPEED RAIL COMMITTEE On the HIGH SPEED RAIL (LONDON WEST MIDLANDS) BILL Wednesday 2 July 2014 Morning sitting In Committee Room 5 PRESENT: Mr Robert Syms (Chair) Mr Henry Bellingham Sir Peter Bottomley Ian Mearns Yasmin Qureshi Mr Michael Thornton IN ATTENDANCE: Timothy Mould QC, Lead Counsel Professor Andrew McNaughton, Technical Director, HS2 IN PUBLIC SESSION

2 INDEX Subject Page Chairman s Opening 3 Mr Mould s Opening 4 Promoter s Presentation 4 2

3 (at 09.30) 1. CHAIR: Order, order, everybody. Welcome to the second meeting of the Committee's substantive programme. Today we will hear a presentation on the route and on audio/visual, together with the briefing from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. May I now invite counsel for HS2 to make their presentation of the route? 2. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Sir, good morning. To my far right is Professor Andrew McNaughton, who is technical director with High Speed 2 Ltd. He is going to be taking your through the route this morning with the benefit of quite a number of slides that we hope you will find helpful. It might be helpful if before he starts that he introduces himself to you, because you will be hearing from him in future as a principal witness for the project, if that is convenient to you. 3. CHAIR: I think that that would be very useful, to just say who you are and a little bit about your background. 4. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Professor McNaughton, I will introduce you and we will take this, I hope, relatively swiftly. I have mentioned already you are presently technical director for High Speed 2 Ltd - that's right, is it not? 5. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes, I am, and technical director means I am responsible for the operational design, the engineering and the environmental design of the route that you have before you. 6. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And just so the Committee has a sense of your professional qualifications and experience, let me just remind them that you are a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow and past President of the Permanent Way Institution - I hope all of those are correct - and you are Honorary Professor of Rail Systems Engineering in the University of Nottingham. 3

4 7. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is correct. 8. MR MOULD QC (DfT): A Visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Imperial College, London and Visiting Professor of Civil Engineering in the University of Southampton. 9. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is all correct. 10. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I think that it would be sufficient just to add this, for present purposes. You can tell the Committee at a later sitting a little bit more about your career history, but, just to say this, that, since work began in earnest on the preparation for High Speed 2 in, I think, 2009, you have been Chief Engineer for the project, have you not? 11. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is correct, yes. 12. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Thank you. So I hope we can proceed confident in the knowledge that you know a little bit about rail engineering and design. Over to you. 13. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Thank you. Chair, colleagues, what I would like to do is go through the route in a fairly systematic fashion and I will explain how in just a moment. It is probably easiest if I go straight to the first slide 1. I think that you saw this simple graphic yesterday in counsel's opening speech. All the maps that I use I try as far as possible to orientate so north is to the top of the page to try to keep it as legible as possible. I will generally talk about places either to the east or to the west of the route. Strictly speaking, the route doesn't run true north, just as Britain doesn't run true north. I am always reminded that Glasgow is actually to the west of Swansea, but I think that it is probably easier if I just do it that way, if that is okay. 1 P2: 4

5 14. I will include a few of the features in terms either of computer images or of photographs of similar features on other high speed railways or other railways that have already been built, simply to illustrate that. Hopefully, a picture is worth a lot of words. 15. I should probably start by saying that the railway is generally a two-track railway and in that sense it is probably not that much different to what you will be familiar with on your travels today in this country. This is a photograph from Eastern France of a recent high speed line just to really illustrate that it is a two-track railway, it is powered by overhead line electricity and, therefore, overhead line masts and it is continuously fenced. Actually, this railway slightly followed the construction of High Speed 1 in England and followed the principle that was established in High Speed 1 which we, indeed, have followed with High Speed 2, which is, wherever possible, to keep the railway low in the landscape to reduce visual and noise intrusion in the places it goes past. That is actually what we call quite an engineered landscape. It is quite hard. I have just one more image of an existing railway which is High Speed 1 in Kent. It is Strood, actually. I have put it to illustrate a similar sort of railway, very similar to mainlines that you will see in this country, and here we have adopted a similar principle of softening the landscaping and not just creating a completely rigid-engineered earthwork. It does mean that in places we seek to take more land than would otherwise be the case, but it is intended to landscape it better into the environment through which the railway passes. 16. I think that I had better get into the route itself, but thank you for allowing me to do that. 17. I would like to start in Birmingham and over the route out to the mainline, which is the seven-mile spur from Birmingham, and thereafter, rather than jump all over the place, to start at the very north end at Handsacre near Litchfield and finish this tour in Euston in London. We will go from north to south, but, if I may, I will start in Birmingham where you, indeed, will be starting your deliberations. 18. I am sure that by now you are familiar with where the station is. Birmingham Curzon Street is a seven-platform station and this is, perhaps, another introductory 5

6 principle I might mention to you. On this Phase One, where it is prudent, we have designed a railway that is large enough to accommodate the second phase that the Government is intending to bring forward later. This is so that we do not build half a station and then turn up a few years later and dig it all up again. Birmingham Curzon Street is sized with seven platforms, not simply to serve London, but with direct trains to Yorkshire and the North East, to the North West and to Scotland. That is really the reason for the size of it. I have just highlighted where other existing mainline stations are in Birmingham at the moment. It virtually shares at its western end a concourse with the existing Moor Street Station, a former Great Western mainline which is now better known for the Chiltern mainline trains to and from London. It is some 400 to 500 metres, depending on which walking route you take, to New Street Station, which is the other main station, often called the principal station. The centre of Birmingham is largely immediately to the north of those two stations. It is adjacent at the west end to Birmingham Moor Street/Queensway main road. If I can just use a computer graphic, this is generated by taking the engineering and architectural design work that has been done so far, which is only an outline, and mapping it on to a digital picture created from aerial photographs. It is very much from the same orientation. To the left end of the station is our concourse, main concourse, next to Queensway. Immediately to the south is the other station, Moor Street Station, and the other mainline railway you see running immediately on the south side of our station is the existing London to Birmingham railway, as it passes through the area heading towards the adjacent New Street Station. That existing railway, as is the Chiltern line, is elevated through what is, effectively, a flood plain and canals and roads and other footways. Our station is designed to be at the same level to ensure that the existing roads that pass under those railways can pass under our station in turn so that we avoid disrupting the normal traffic of Birmingham. 19. The line heads eastwards, which, in the orientation of this picture, is towards the top right of your photograph and it is on viaduct to lift it over railways and highways, which otherwise our new line would sever. 20. I now switch the first of our maps. This covers the entire spur between Curzon Street at the left-hand corner and the mainline which is accessed both north and south by what we generally call a delta junction or a three-way junction. Again, I will try to 6

7 avoid using railway terminology where I can, because it's its own private language and, if I do lapse into that, please interrupt me and ask me to explain better. We follow the corridor of the M6. That is basically the key to this particular route. Our railway comes out of Curzon Street, as I have mentioned, heading broadly east, and swings north over the existing Birmingham to Derby railway and then tucks in besides it, which is why it follows the route you see, first, northwards and then swinging back to the east. 21. The first feature I would like to draw out is the grey area you see just as it has completed curving to get close to the M6. The M6 following normal mapping is in blue. That is Washwood Heath. This is a bird's eye generated image to show Washwood Heath, which is a very substantial place. It is actually the site of the former Metropolitan Carriage Works which for over 150 years built trains and was, actually, closed less than a decade ago. The last trains that were built in this place were actually the current Pendolinos that run on the West Coast Mainline. We seek to take over a former railway area and create the nerve centre of the entire High Speed 2 network. It is the single place where the trains - what we call the rolling stock - are maintained, serviced and looked after, which is an activity probably more akin to aircraft maintenance than to how you might think of traditional railway maintenance, such is the nature of high speed trains. That is the main building you see in the image there. To the bottom of the picture there is another main building and that is from where all the trains on our network would be controlled. When I say this is the nerve centre of HS2, that is, I think, quite a reasonable description. 22. Now, there is a lot going on in this picture, and I apologise for that, but it is a busy transport corridor. If I start from our depot, the lines running away to the top of the picture, immediately next to them are the High Speed 2 lines, then next to those are the existing Birmingham to Derby railway and then immediately further away is the M6. The M6 is elevated, which is an important feature for us, because the next thing the railway has to do is to get under the M6. After many design iterations, we have ended up with a tunnel to do that. Just under the OO of Washwood is where our railway sinks into a tunnel. 23. MR BOTTOMLEY: Is that long enough to be bored? 7

8 24. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is long enough to be bored. A last thing about trains before I get back to the substance of the network - and I think that counsel mentioned this yesterday - is that our trains are generally 200 metres long, but they are capable of running in pairs when either the traffic warrants it or often because trains then serve two destinations, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow or Liverpool and Preston or whatever. That is a picture of a modern high speed train that happens to be running in Italy. 25. Now, back to the substance, forgive me I should have said much more plainly at the start, on all these maps our railway is shown in red. It is the orangey-red line. Here I think it is relatively self-evident, including the delta junction that I mentioned earlier. The one variation on that, which I now draw your attention to, is immediately to the right-hand side of the grey area, which we have just been discussing, which is Washwood Heath. We enter a tunnel. Generally, where we have tunnels, whether they be bored tunnels or cut and cover tunnels, they are shown for today as this crosshatching of black on red, but I will highlight them specifically when we come to them. 26. To get underneath the M6 and avoid disruption to what is the heart of the Birmingham motorway network, we enter a bore tunnel for just on one and three quarter miles, coming out at the other end adjacent to the existing Birmingham to Derby railway, but now on the other side of the M6. This is in the Castle Bromwich Business Park. Continuing along, the final thing perhaps to say before I go on to the next slide is that it is now sticking as close as possible to the M6 to line up - essentially to mimic what the motorway network does; just as the motorway has links going north and south so does our railway. 27. The final thing to say on this spur for today, anyway, is that, as it starts to curve, it passes through a nature reserve which is Park Hall Nature Reserve. 28. The trains on this spur, because it is a short spur running out to the mainline, are limited in speed to 140 mph. 8

9 29. Moving forward, we then come to what probably in engineering terms is the most complex piece of the network, which is the three-way junction or delta junction. This is to enable the trains from Birmingham to serve both the North East and the North West, as I said previously, and to head towards London. The railway splits at its first junction to the south of the village of Water Orton and the south leg goes around towards a junction near the M42, heading southwards, and the north junction, similarly, near to the M42 heading north. 30. In terms of the very large community of Castle Bromwich, which is here around to the left of your picture, between us and them is both the trunk A452 and the M6, heading south. We cross over the top of the motorway at various locations, which is probably best shown with a picture. The next picture is an aerial view looking south to north. Looking from near the south end of this triangular junction, we have been coming out on the spur that is in the middle of the picture in the distance on the lefthand side. The south leg crosses the M42 to M6 link road and then heads in the direction you can see and the north spur swings around across the M42 and in the background you can see the village of Water Orton. 31. Perhaps, at this point I should say that one of the features of high speed rail, probably rather like motorways, is that the junctions are all grade separated. This is an essential feature for both safety and reliability. Unlike Victorian railways, we do not allow trains to have junctions where they cross in front of each other and, possibly, in conflict. Just as you come off a motorway on a slip road rather than turn right across the other carriageway, on high speed lines we have a similar approach with grade separated junctions. If I lapse into the phrase again grade separated junctions, that is what I mean. 32. That really concludes the short piece of route out of Birmingham. I now would like to jump you to the far north of the route to Handsacre in Staffordshire. At the top left corner the arrow marks what will be a new junction with the existing mainline, the trunk West Coast Mainline, just south of Handsacre, which is another grade separated junction. We come off that at 125 mph, which is allowed on the West Coast Mainline, and follow a short linked track across to what will become the mainline railway. That is 9

10 the second junction that is on this, which is just here, which is what we call Litchfield Junction, which is where this link is designed to connect with what would be the second phase of High Speed 2 heading northwards. In this Bill is the short spur or stub of that railway, so that, if it does follow through Parliament and get permission for building, that could be created without interrupting High Speed 2 Phase One, which by that stage will be in operation. 33. We are now heading south on the mainline, if I can describe it in that fashion, engineered for 225 mph rather than the slower speed that we had in Birmingham. The railway then is running to the south oriented to fit between Fradley Business Park, which is just to the east of the railway and north of the main A38 and, in turn, the village of Streethay that is just on the west side of the railway, which is on the outskirts of Litchfield. This is one of the areas where the railway is not in cutting, as it goes across the existing flood plain, as do the railways and roads already, and the current scheme includes for a bridge across each of the roads and railways that are there. 34. There is another grade area just immediately to the south of the main trunk road. That is land which we propose to take temporarily to create a major railhead. I have a picture of a railhead slightly later in the presentation, so I will come back to explain that term, if I may. Suffice for now to say that it is a place where much of the material for the railway could be brought in by rail rather than by road and then transferred on to construction equipment that runs up and down the trace of the railway or the line of the railway whilst it is being built itself. I will come back to show what we really mean by a railhead because it is quite a major feature. 35. I have moved on now with very little overlap of the slides to the railway running south through South Staffordshire, crossing the A5, which is the main trunk road you see running really from left to right in the middle of the picture, but I properly should point out just before it does that - and I think that rather than try to describe it, I will point to it, Flats Lane is a community or a hamlet of some 12 dwellings which are lost if the railway is built. It is proper to point that out. South of the main A5 the railway is then swung to fit between a number of parcels or blocks of ancient woodland and, generally, where on these maps you see - again I will point to one for illustration - that 10

11 sort of mid-green hatching, that is woodland. I will draw your attention to ancient woodland generally as we go, but not every single piece because we would probably be here forever if I did. The line passes here in cutting and on the other side of the valley to a village called Hints. I am sure Hints will feature in your deliberations in due course. 36. Having swept towards the south east, it is then curving in the other direction to head towards the corridor or the motorway network to the east of Birmingham. In doing so, it passes to the east of the village of Middleton and immediately to the west of Aston Villa football training ground. This is one of the many areas on the route where the alignment has been progressively adjusted through both representation to the then Secretary of State in 2010 and then formal public consultation in 2011, and changes at each time. Having passed between those two places, it then crosses just immediately to the south of where you see the words North Warwickshire Borough. I should say at the point of Middleton, we pass into North Warwickshire from Staffordshire. Here there is a parcel of ancient woodland which would be lost if and when the railway is built. Right at the bottom of this map is another junction with a short red spur heading off towards the north east, as you see it, in the top right corner. The blue road is the M42. This is the spur that would be the line to Leeds if that subsequently is brought forward and approved by the House. Again, the Bill includes sufficient construction of that so that we would not have to go back and dig up the railway again. 37. There is a large grey area there outlined at Kingsbury and this is our second major railhead. This time I will explain what I mean by a railhead. The Kingsbury railhead is where all the railway material, that is the rails, the overhead line, the wires, etc, would be brought in by rail to equip the whole route. This really follows the approach that was adopted, I think, successfully on High Speed 1, where there was a similar railhead at a place called Beechbrook Farm. I am now going to show you an aerial photograph of Beechbrook Farm railhead which probably emphasises the scale of construction necessary if you are going to centralise, as appropriately you are going to centralise, all the material that otherwise might have to come in piecemeal by lorry. Beechbrook Farm, relatively close to Ashford, was taken for the construction phase of High Speed 1. If I could ask you to concentrate for a moment on the patch of woodland 11

12 that is right in the middle of the picture through which High Speed 1 was being built at the time. It is simply to orientate the next picture. Looking at that woodland should help show you what it looked like a couple of years after construction was completed. I draw this to your attention because it is another of the principles in the proposals for High Speed 2 that is to follow the example of High Speed 1, which is, where we take land for construction, included in the Bill is the necessary reinstatement, normally, back to former use, in this case agricultural use. That was a picture taken a couple of years after the completion of High Speed 1. That is the same principle we propose to use at sites like Kingsbury, which I showed you a moment ago. 38. The point where the line from Leeds would join the mainline that we have been following south and heading towards the delta junction that I mentioned earlier is the principal place where the route is no longer a two-track railway; at this point it becomes a four-track railway. From the top of your picture at Leeds Junction, and indeed through the whole of this particular map and on to the next one, when we get to Birmingham Interchange Station, the mainline south is wider to carry four tracks. This is as the various junctions join and leave the mainline, which is really why I said it is the most complicated piece of railway on the route. When it is a four-track railway, the inner two tracks are, if you like, the fast tracks, at full speed, and the outer tracks, which trains will diverge or converge from, are at a slower speed, because there is a maximum speed that you can actually create a railway junction turnout, which is 140 mph. It is not slow, but not high speed either. 39. I think that all I really should say so that we can move on is hopefully this map shows you how the route selected by the Secretary of State from the various routes that were looked at in this area was the one that most closely matched the existing motorway network, but there is, therefore, a lot of transport infrastructure in quite a small area. But immediately to the south of that the route comes through and there is a little bit of overlap between those slides. We have just come south of the M42/M6 major interchange and we have routed the line to have minimal impact on that interchange, given its importance to the trunk railway network. 12

13 40. We come to a blob on our line which is the site of Birmingham Interchange Station. As Mr Mould said yesterday, immediately to the west of it is the M4 and then the National Exhibition Centre and then the existing London to Birmingham railway that is between this point, Coventry and Birmingham, and then Birmingham Airport itself, which is hidden slightly under the words Solihull Metropolitan Borough. Maybe I should have said we are in the Borough of Solihull at this point. Our station is in this triangle of land between the M42 heading north-south to the west of it, the main A45 dual carriageway immediately to the south and the main A452 immediately to its east. The Bill includes for a number of highway works and junction changes to that area on the highway network to accommodate the traffic which will be generated by the creation of our station. It also includes for a people mover. A people mover is similar to what you would find in an airport between airport terminals. 41. MR MEARNS: Like a light railway, 42. MR BOTTOMLEY: Moving pavement. 43. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I am sorry, it is not a moving pavement. It is little shuttle trains on the track. 44. MR MEARNS: Like a light railway. 45. MR THORNTON: Like at Gatwick. 46. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes. I am sorry, I misheard you, apologies. 47. MR MEARNS: I will try to speak English in future! I am terribly sorry. 48. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I am a little hard of hearing. I try to disguise it, my apologies. That just comes with age, I fear. 13

14 49. Like at Gatwick, sir, indeed like at Birmingham Airport currently, but this would need to be of higher capacity than the existing Birmingham Airport one, should you know it, more like the Gatwick one and other places in the world. 50. If I, perhaps, turn to the next picture, which is another computer-generated graphic, and I ask you not necessarily to comment on the architectural treatment, because that is a very early illustration. This is the kind of bird's eye view. The people mover track is shown heading off to the left-hand side of the picture. Now, the exact specification and alignment of that is continuing to be developed with Solihull Council, with the NEC and the airport themselves, but the essential alignment is the alignment you see there. 51. CHAIR: Presumably, that goes to the NEC and to the airport. Does it go anywhere else? 52. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The plan we have for the Bill takes it as far as the airport. Now, Solihull Council have very major plans for the area should HS2 be approved and be built, which you will find usually dubbed as UK Central, which is a new ecologically-sound city in Solihull or green city, but, for the purposes of the Bill, our people mover takes you as far as the airport via the NEC and the existing railway station. There is also provision for substantial car parking and this is an illustration of the 6,400 parking spaces which have been allowed for or have been modelled in the Environment Statement for the effects and, indeed, to size the necessary changes to the motorway network in the immediate area. 53. MR BOTTOMLEY: The southern loop to that light rail system, is that something that should interest us? 54. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: It is actually not very interesting, sir. What it is is just a loop around to the little building where these devices are maintained, although, similarly, someone will have an idea about how they could develop it as part of a bigger network, I am sure. We take the land to do that, but the exact design of that would depend on whose people mover is purchased. 14

15 55. MR MEARNS: Could I ask at this stage as well, would the only public transport access to that station be via the light railway? 56. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The only steel rail access is by the light railway, but there is MR MEARNS: What about other public transport modes? 58. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The other public transport modes we expect here, as at the existing station, would be long-distance coach, bus, taxi, etc. In that sense it mimics very much the existing Birmingham International Station. Again, it is probably proper to say, sir, that Birmingham and Solihull all have many ideas about the future development of the area, but that is the position strictly as far as the Bill is concerned. It was developed largely to give access from the wider West Midlands metropolitan area to a point on both the highway network and the road-based public transport networks that people can get to easily. Most of those networks have been built up to serve the airport and the existing NEC in any case. 59. MR BOTTOMLEY: Can I ask a question that is on my mind? Can you just briefly tell us the reasons why it is not co-located with Birmingham International? 60. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I will go on to the next slide, because a map is easier. The existing station is here on the other side and, in essence, we did look at options through there. They all involved very great disruption to edges of suburban Birmingham to the north and, indeed, there were effects to the south. We would have also ended up, if I can put it in the vernacular, demolishing half the NEC or the airport, but the thing that mattered to us was that, whereas at the moment we are slotted between highways and, generally speaking, therefore, minimising the effect on communities, if we moved a nearly a mile to the west, then we would be ploughing through tens of thousands of homes. 15

16 61. Immediately to or closer to the south of the station, having crossed the A45 trunk road, the railway becomes a two-tack railway again and it stays pretty much a two-track railway for the rest of the way, save for a couple of places that I will highlight when we come to them. 62. It continues to head south or south east, past Hampton in Arden and it is at this point heading for what is often called the Kenilworth Gap. There are a number of large towns to the south east of Birmingham. From left to right, they are Warwick, Royal Leamington Spa, Kenilworth and Coventry. There is one gap which is not so built up which is the Kenilworth Gap. Our line is coming in from the top left corner here and then passes through an area, which is low lying and subject to flooding, where, again, we have lifted the railway up above the water level of what would be the flood plain. This does mean that some of it is on viaduct and close to where you see the words, Solihull Metropolitan Borough again. The other side of existing railway from the village of Balsall Common is an illustration of the sort of ground that the railway is crossing here, with a number of water features, balancing ponds and the like and we are on low viaduct. 63. MR MOULD QC (DfT): Can you just point out the station which we see in the left foreground? We can see the bridge over. That is Berkswell Station, is it? 64. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is Berkswell Station, yes. We are the other side of the railway to Balsall Common, which Berkswell Station is the station for. 65. MR MOULD QC (DfT): And that is the London to Birmingham railway? 66. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That is the London to Birmingham railway, yes. 67. MR BOTTOMLEY: So the Chiltern line or the PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The Virgin line, as we think of it as. The line is at that point between Coventry and Birmingham. Just before I leave that image, right 16

17 at the bottom right corner, in front of the nose of our 400-metre long train, and to the east side of the railway, is an image of a noise barrier. Whereas we have generally managed to use earth for noise barriers, there are places where that would be too intrusive on the landscape and where we have gone for a hard solution to retain the noise and protect local communities. This is one of them. It is not a particularly good picture. I should probably move on rapidly. 69. I come back to the map that we were looking at a moment ago, because so far we have got ourselves down to the point here, as I said, on the opposite side of the railway. If I can just point now, that is the station that Mr Mould just highlighted, which is Berkswell Station. The railway is routed in this orientation here in order that it gains the Kenilworth Gap corridor and, more particularly, gains the track bed of a former railway, which was the Berkswell to Kenilworth railway, which was shut in the Beeching era. The railway was built in deep cutting through this gap and we have adopted that cutting and deepened it to create a passage for High Speed 2. It is a similar width but deeper. To gain it, though, first we go over the London to Birmingham railway that Mr Mould mentioned that is then heading off towards Coventry on the right-hand side of the picture. At that point we leave it behind. 70. We have now gone into deep cutting along the line of this former railway which is now a greenway. It is the Kenilworth Greenway, which in the Bill we variously alter, divert but maintain. The old railway went through the middle of the village of Burton Green. The village of Burton Green is laid out along two roads and the former railway went through the middle of it in cutting and we are doing the same thing. We have the same effect. Just before we get to it, at a point where I put an arrow now, there is one of the three main places where we take from the National Grid. There is a large National Grid substation there and we plan to build a feeder station next to it to take power from the National Grid for the traction power of the trains. Then there is a short dotted section of some 600 metres as we pass through that village of Burton Green. That denotes a cut and cover tunnel. Basically, we have lowered the route deeper in a cutting that the former railway was sufficient, crudely, to put a lid on top of the railway for the length that it passes through Burton Green. 17

18 71. MR MEARNS: I take it that that cutting would have to be widened as well as being deepened, is that right, because we are talking about a four-track railway at this point? 72. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I am sorry, if I did not say it clearly, which I could not have done, when we left Birmingham Interchange, the railway became a twotrack railway again. 73. MR MEARNS: Thank you. 74. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: At the bottom it is widened, but it is widened with vertical walls. Whereas the former railway was a cutting with cutting slopes, we chop down with concrete walls, albeit deeper, and then put a lid on top. I have an image slightly later in the presentation of a cut and cover tunnel, which is probably better than my rather feeble efforts at miming one, if that is okay. 75. MR MEARNS: The miming doesn't look great in Hansard, does it? 76. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Moving on rapidly, once we are passed through Burton Green, we are then at a point a bit further on. We leave that alignment of the former railway, simply because that then heads for Kenilworth and we are avoiding Kenilworth. So continuing in the south-easterly direction, we come to finally the Kenilworth Gap. This is in the top left corner. I think that you can see the built-up area which is Kenilworth, but immediately to the north of the line would be the built-up area, which is the city of Coventry. We are passing through this gap between the two. In doing so, we then cross the edge of the former National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh which is now Stoneleigh Business Park. I think that that will probably feature in your deliberations in due course, sir. The route here, again, has been changed/amended a number of times by successive Secretaries of State, who prioritised avoiding impacts on the ancient village of Stoneleigh, which is a little way from the line. Actually, it is largely over the top of a hill, the other side of a hill. There is the ancient village of Stoneleigh, then there is deer park and then there is the former 18

19 Agricultural Centre and the line is routed along the edge of the former Agricultural Centre. 77. MR MOULD QC (DfT): It is in a cutting, I think. 78. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: It is in a slight cutting, not a very deep cutting, because to the north there are a number of important water courses of which we go over the top. We must not affect the flood performance of the area. 79. Continuing on the journey, we then pass by the village of Cubbington. In doing so, to fit in with the deep cutting through the landscape, we cut the corner of another parcel of ancient woodland, Cubbington Wood. In order to minimise the amount of land we take in that sensitive area, the railway is being put into a retained cutting; by which I mean rather than having natural slopes, there is a retaining wall, a vertical wall, on one side of the railway, so that the amount of land we need to take to create the railway is minimised. 80. MR BELLINGHAM: Do you have a computer-generated image of that? 81. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Not here today, but in due course, sir, when you come to this area we will have. 82. MR BELLINGHAM: Thank you. 83. MS QUREHSI: Can I ask a question? You say that you are going to be cutting through the woodland - and maybe the answer is fairly straightforward, but excuse my ignorance - does that mean to say that the two bits get divided permanently and in order to travel from one to the other somebody is going to have to make a very long detour to get to the other side? Will that happen to all the woodland when the train track goes through there or will there be any way of connecting the two sides of woodland? 84. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: The treatment will depend on what degree of public access there is to any particular woodland. In this particular case, there is the 19

20 opportunity to take the soil and the seeds from the area which is affected and put them into the area between the railway and the northern part of that to seek to re-establish the woodland with the same species. Of course, it is not ancient at that point, because it is new seeds, but that is the nature of regeneration of woodland. I am in danger of giving you a very long answer to what must seem a very simple question, I am sorry. It does depend on where we are. We seek to substitute, we seek to retain seeds and replant, but it does depend on each woodland we talk about and, as you, the Committee, deliberate on the proposals, we will be discussing that in really great detail at each particular site. Here, just so we do not leave it completely hanging, where you see this small section which would be cut through, that is an area which we are for the moment probably assuming that it is largely lost. The planting of seeds and soil could be re-established in an area such as the area I am now circling so that the overall amount of woodland - effectively, it is reconfigured, but I am not explaining it brilliantly without the proper details I need for this particular area. 85. MS QURESHI: When you use the terminology it will be lost, presumably, you are saying that that bit of the woodland will, effectively, become a train track. 86. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes. 87. MS QUREHSI: And not that the two cannot be connected? 88. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: As an engineer, I will say to you that all things are possible. 89. MS QURESHI: Yes, of course. It is a question of costs. 90. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: When we come to discuss that area, it may be something that we get into a very detailed discussion about and you will, doubtless, get, quite properly, petitioners representing different treatments for that particular section. 91. MR MEARNS: Would there be a bridge at that juncture as well where it cuts across? 20

21 92. MR MOULD QC (DfT): I cannot recall precisely what our arrangements are for having access in that area. I have asked for the details to be got up for us and I will try and give you that before we close today. 93. CHAIR: Thank you. 94. MR BOTTOMLEY: As part of that, if Mill Lane extends as a footpath to the southern end of the woods, it would be useful to know about that. 95. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes. 96. MR MOULD QC (DfT): We will try to give you that before we close. 97. CHAIR: That will be helpful. 98. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: We have just been discussing Cubbington Wood which is at the top now of the next slide. We then continue across Warwickshire until we get to another shaded area which I want to just highlight to you, which is two thirds of the way down the map on our line here, which is Long Itchington Hill. This is a hill and to go through it we have a bored tunnel. It is a bored tunnel of some one and a quarter miles. I hope you might just be able to see the extent of dotted line from where I am pointing with the arrow now. It goes under the shaded area and then under the next area to come out where I am pointing. The hill is a natural feature. The railway is quite high and, therefore, we have adopted a bored tunnel to go through it. Now, the shading is actually for another reason, which is on top of the hill is a SSSI ( a Site of Special Scientific Interest) which is Long Itchington Wood, which is an oak wood. The tunnel is there because we are going through a hill, but on top of the hill is the wood. By adopting a bored tunnel, rather than a cut and cover tunnel, we avoid affecting the wood. You will probably have images in your mind of what railway tunnels look like from the existing railway or from your childhood or whatever. High speed rail tunnels are quite sophisticated beasts, not least because of the aerodynamic effects of going fast, but also to meet the modern European rules on tunnel safety, 21

22 particularly tunnel fire safety, which have continued to develop in the last 20 years after some catastrophic fires in tunnels from an earlier era. What it means is that where we have a bored tunnel, each track is in its own bore or own tunnel. They do not share a tunnel. The next image will look fairly scary because it is in Spain and it is not terribly landscaped. So hold on to your seats! It makes the point that each track is in its own bore. The bores are connected at various points for people to get between the two, but that is what the entrance to a tunnel looks like before it is landscaped. By putting up this image, I wanted also to introduce, though, it is a much bigger topic for another day, that trains moving at speed between the free open air and the closed environment of a tunnel, which is like a piston effect, is not an instantaneous wall between open air and closed tunnel. What we have are what are called - and this is a little piece of terminology, I am sorry, we will use from time to time - porous portals. 99. MR BOTTOMLEY: Vents PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Which is a series of vents. Effectively, you go from a structure with big holes in it to progressively smaller holes and that way the train gets a smooth transition and, for that matter, more importantly, the passengers on the train get a smooth transition from open air to the tunnel and then at the other end out again. The objective, apart from anything else, is your ears don't pop. It is very important for passenger comfort. It is also very important to avoid the kind of energy which otherwise would be the noise of going into and out of a tunnel. It is a transition. But, when we come to talk about tunnels on the route, the treatment of portals so that they are acceptable environmentally visually, but still perform as the engineering structure is one of the things that has challenged me and my team probably more than most MS QURESHI: Can I just ask the question? This is obviously a bored tunnel, because it has gone straight in. You talk about a straight cut tunnel PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes MS QURESHI: Do you mind if I ask you to explain again? 22

23 104. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: I do have some images in a few slides' time, if you don't mind MS QURESHI: I can wait PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Otherwise I will be doing more hand movements and probably creating vicarious amusement, but probably not actually illustrating the point terribly well. We will cover it MS QURESHI: That is fine PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Thank you. The route south of Long Itchington is again one of the areas which now looks very different to The railway has been moved so that it runs between the town of Southam, which is to the east of the railway, and the village of Ladbroke, which is to the west. I will just point out Ladbroke with its bypass is there. We have moved the route quite close to Southam because of the particular topography of the area means that that was the way we minimise the effect on both places, particularly as the nearest part of Southam is a large industrial estate, but the line was moved progressively away from Ladbroke I will head south towards Lower Boddington. In this area of South Warwickshire there are a number of very small hamlets and communities and our task was to thread the railway between them. That will feature, I am sure, in greater discussions. An example of this is halfway through you will see two kinds of - I will say grey, but that is not the right colour - areas. I use them to just highlight two other villages, the village of Wormleighton, which I am circling with an arrow here, conversely, the village of Priors Hardwick here. Much of our railway is about slotting between villages as we go south through rural England At the point where this kind of blue line is is where the line moves from Warwickshire into South Northamptonshire. That is just the county boundary. You will see highlighted by the thicker red blob an area for about three quarters of a mile. 23

24 This is one of the two places where the railway becomes a four-track railway again for that sort of distance, three quarters of a mile. These our northern maintenance loops. These are two additional tracks, one on each side of the railway, where we can during the daytime park maintenance trains which are needed to maintain the railway at night. A high speed railway is properly maintained by quite sophisticated rail mounted trains automated equipment - mechanised equipment. It is therefore maintained substantially from the railway itself. In that sense it is quite different to a Victorian railway, which is largely maintained by many white vans and it is very important for us to have out bases for that equipment. We do not try and maintain the railway by fleets of road vehicles, we maintain it by rail vehicles, but we need somewhere to put them in the daytime and this is one of the two places on the route where they can be out based from our central depot MR MEARNS: That area where you have four tracks altogether, side by side, seems to come at a point where you have actually got three local roads meeting PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Yes. The roads are maintained. The reason that it is there is because, where we have those loops, the track needs to be straight. We actually have very little straight track on this railway. Contrary to perhaps some statements, it is a railway that is a collection of curves, because all the time we are seeking to minimise the effect on communities and other features. This is one of the few places where we have a piece of straight track. You will see this, I hope, when we come to discuss an area in detail, the line is in quite deep cutting there. The roads naturally go over the top. Take it, please, as a general principle, where you see roads crossing the railway the roads are maintained by new bridges MR MOULD QC (DfT): We know that there are a number of petitioners who are interested in this feature and I will make sure that when you get to drill down into the issues they raise in the sort of detail that I fear you will have to, I will make sure that we give you detailed information about the construction and permanent arrangements that will apply here MR MEARNS: Thank you. 24

25 115. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: Forgive me, sir, I am trying to create a balance between picking out the things that undoubtedly you will be coming back to, because they are sensitive, and doing it within a reasonable time scale of the 140-mile route. So thank you At this point having entered South Northamptonshire, the railway is then threaded between some further villages, which are probably best shown by switching to the next map. At the very top left to the right of the railway or to the east of the railway is Lower Boddington. Then there is another hamlet or village of Aston Le Walls and there is a third village of Chipping Warden. The topography of the land here changes. If I highlight it, you can probably just see another former railway, long closed, which follows a natural... I only highlight this because it illustrates the contour. At that point the land rises quite steeply and, indeed, for many years outside Chipping Warden there was an airfield and the kind of features that you see here are the features of a former airfield. The long dotted line area that starts besides Aston Le Walls and carries on past Chipping Warden is a long cut and cover tunnel. I am now coming towards discussing cut and cover tunnels. It is, in fact, one and a half miles long. It avoids having a very wide, because it would be very deep, natural cutting. Rather than use a computergenerated image we thought best to illustrate this with an actual cut and cover tunnel from High Speed 1, actually from Bletchley in Kent. If I can use this to try to illustrate, you create a cut and cover tunnel by digging out - and this is the next image I want to show you - the same place during construction, but, please, try to hold in your minds what it looks like when it is finished, which is it is reinstated and the land across the tunnel is reinstated. This is not a cheap operation, but it shows what is possible. That was it during construction. Basically, you dig out down to the foundation level for the future track and create what I would best describe as a big concrete box, with a base, two walls and a lid. When it is finished it is quite unobtrusive. When it is being constructed it is quite a task to do it. Whilst it is under construction, there is a considerable amount of disruption, but that land is reinstated when the tunnel is constructed. 25

26 117. MR BELLINGHAM: How does the cost of that compare to full tunnelling, Professor? 118. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: It depends - sorry, if I say depends, I do not mean to sound evasive at all. Let me try and answer it in this way. A bore tunnel is extremely expensive to set up to bore the first yard, with all the arrangements etc, whereas a cut and cover tunnel is pretty much the same cost per yard or cost per metre however long it is. So, if you were talking about a tunnel of this length, about a mile or a mile and a half, then the cut and cover tunnel is cheaper than a bore tunnel. If you go much longer, then the relativities change MS QURESHI: I know that you will not be able to tell us exactly how long it would take, but, approximately, say a mile and a half of cut and cover tunnel, are we talking about years, months or PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: We are talking three or four years MS QURESHI: And would a bore tunnel take longer? 122. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: That would be three or four years, too. They are very different techniques and I think that in due course we will be offering you much greater detail about the tools and techniques of tunnel construction and the opportunity for much more expert teaching from those who have done this many times MS QURESHI: I have one other question and, again, you may not be able to answer this at this point, but, if the route goes ahead and you have got all these tunnels being made on different parts of the route, will they all start at the same time or will they do one and then go on to the next one? 124. PROFESSOR MCNAUGHTON: To construct the route in any reasonable time scale, they would pretty much all be constructed in parallel MS QURESHI: Simultaneously? 26