I don't know whether HS2 will be built, in whole or in part. I'm not hugely fussed either way. If it is built the extra hour in London on a day trip would be nice - my biggest personal gain would probably be getting to Birmingham without having to put up with jogging between Wolverhampton and New Street.
If it is built I will make the following predictions:
1. It will be late.
2. It will be over budget.
3. The opening will see problems with both infrastructure and rolling stock.
4. There will be photographs of empty trains.
5. Some poor souls will get stuck in a tunnel for 4-6 hours before being rescued.
And within ten years we will be wondering how we ever did without it ...
Phase one at the present time is being built. I doubt any government could face off canceling it now, unless the opposition got into power, and even then it may continue to be built. Much land has been acquired and businesses have moved out of the way. Part of West Euston has been purchased or is about to be completed. Curzon Street is being levelled as we speak.
I'm sure there will be photos of empty trains after its opened. But sometimes we have to be a big more long sighted. So there may be empty coaches in 2027, but will there be in 2040? This railway should in theory last at least as the WCML has. Circa 150 years and counting?
Well competently carried out I can't imagine how electrification, sorting out a few junctions, extending a few platforms and maybe an extra one or two platforms, perhaps a few miles of third tracking where it might be feasible etc etc could possibly cost as much as HS2 but hey'ho you might be right, as far as railways are concerned we do live in crazy times!
But there isn't much more you can drastically improve on the West Coast Mainline. The route is curved by nature which has its limits, some of the infrastructure still dates back to the 60s. I seem to remember a poster saying some time back that for what could be done with Colwich Junction, the cost would bring very little benefit. Rugby has been improved drastically already. What's left of you can't add more tracks? In cab signalling? The current signalling is mostly under 15 years old. People would complain about resignalling again, if it was agreed and the media caught wind it was last done 15 years ago.
Instead of spending 100 billions of pounds on HS2 let's face it is North of Manchester won't see benifet of hs2. Why don't they update the technology and tracks on wcml and ecml to get the train run to full potential.
Update to what though? European rail traffic management system? (Including automatically operated trains)? There would likely be many years of disruption on the old route, again, while it was resignaled, again. I don't think communities around the WCML would stomach it politically. And the media might end up reporting that the last upgrade was a farce as it's got to be done again.
New trains would likely be needed prematurely on the old lines if they were resignaled for ERTMS/ATO. I'm sure that would be pulled apart with the Pendolino fleet only being half-life.
North of Manchester may well see the benefit because anyone wanting to get between London and Manchester will have a wide choice of high speed service, scope for expansion in the future, and quite possibly more travel options into the Midlands when fast line trains on the old lines begin stopping at stations which are currently not served that well by the current high speed operation.
Plus, more freight paths on the old lines (nearly full today) means less lorries on the motorways everywhere, including the north which has busy motorways. If the freight operators had to turn down any business in the future then it would most likely end up on the roads. Pollution.