HS2, in the First Phase, goes from London to Birmingham. It does not - and never will even with Phase 2 - go to Liverpool.HS2 trains will enter Liverpool, please tell me how “HS2 isn’t going to Liverpool”?
HS2, in the First Phase, goes from London to Birmingham. It does not - and never will even with Phase 2 - go to Liverpool.HS2 trains will enter Liverpool, please tell me how “HS2 isn’t going to Liverpool”?
It doesn't matter if the new rail infrastructure doesn't fully reach the bufferstops; Liverpool is still getting a service that uses the new line to speed up journeys. In any case, NPR may eventually provide some dedicated high speed infrastructure entering the city which could also be used by HS2 trains, even a complete new station perhaps. Would a dedicated pair refettled in an existing alignment meet your exacting standards or is it entirely new construction or nothing? In many European networks high speed trains routinely use 'classic' stations, particularly at quieter extremities and accessing them via parts of the existing network.Will Liverpool have a high-speed rail line? No. Next!
It does matter. Liverpool is not getting HS2 - it is getting an annexe, an add-on, an afterthought. Like so much of the claims about HS2, the reality is very different from the headline news.It doesn't matter if the new rail infrastructure doesn't fully reach the bufferstops; Liverpool is still getting a service that uses the new line to speed up journeys.
Even at Phase one there will be significantly more trains on the route than just those going to Birmingham. They will fan out across the existing WCML network north of Birmingham Interchange. You know this very well so don't be disingenuous.HS2, in the First Phase, goes from London to Birmingham. It does not - and never will even with Phase 2 - go to Liverpool.
Can you please explain why something which is likely to carry getting on for 100 million passenger movements a year is going to be a White Elephant (which by definition is something which is of little or no use)?
No you will not have to change, as I pointed out in my last post. Liverpool is not being ignored. One of the reasons that Manchester gets a new line all the way is because the approach through Stockport is completely full. That cannot be said to be the case on the multiple routes into Liverpool.It does matter. Liverpool is not getting HS2 - it is getting an annexe, an add-on, an afterthought. Like so much of the claims about HS2, the reality is very different from the headline news.
It does matter that a northern city is being ignored by HS2 Ltd because, hey, for £55bn+ you have to change at a outpost somewhere near but not quite Birmingham.
Even at Phase one there will be significantly more trains on the route than just those going to Birmingham. They will fan out across the existing WCML network north of Birmingham Interchange. You know this very well so don't be disingenuous.
In many European networks high speed trains routinely use 'classic' stations, particularly at quieter
It doesn't matter if the new rail infrastructure doesn't fully reach the bufferstops
We're not talking about Blackpool or Middlesbrough, though. We're talking about a city of 860,000 people. So yes, it does matter.
If it doesn't go to Liverpool, Liverpool doesn't have HS2. An afterthought on slow lines from a small market town 50 miles away is not high speed rail.
It's just yet another example of HS2 tubthumpers trying desperately to claim "benefits" that simply do not exist.
You have found, as I have during many years of being a constant and vocal opponent of HS2, that supporters have skipped from one justification to another like children on stepping stones
It does matter. Liverpool is not getting HS2 - it is getting an annexe, an add-on, an afterthought. Like so much of the claims about HS2, the reality is very different from the headline news.
It does matter that a northern city is being ignored by HS2 Ltd because, hey, for £55bn+ you have to change at a outpost somewhere near but not quite Birmingham.
If those 100m passengers are all passengers who would have travelled on the classic lines anyway, then a shiny new line is, by definition, pointless.
The main point is that many towns on the 'classic' lines - such as Watford, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton, Stevenage and Peterborough see rail services that are much poorer than need by because so many paths on the railway lines through those towns are taken up by long distance services that run through at 100+mph without stopping.
HS2 will bring very welcome speed and capacity improvements, such as cutting the absurdly long 2-hour journey from Leeds to Birmingham
you antis can't even be consistent. You argue the project is too expensive yet complain it doesn't have enough new infrastructure branches which would make it even more expensive.
Well I'm glad you cleared that one up for me. Clearly I now realise there is no TGV from Paris to Strasbourg at all because the last 7 miles are accomplished over conventional network track. In fact much of the French TGV network clearly doesn't exist for similar reasons. There's no HS service to Lyon for instance as its an existing station. Most of Germany's high speed network is a complete mirage as almost all routes share some infrastructure with other trains. Even Japanese mini shinkansens cease to exist when they exit the trunk main lines and proceed over gauge converted former narrow gauge branches. I see the light now!If it doesn't go to Liverpool, Liverpool doesn't have HS2. An afterthought on slow lines from a small market town 50 miles away (or, in phase one, a small marlet town 150 miles away) is not high speed rail. It's just yet another example of HS2 tubthumpers trying desperately to claim "benefits" that simply do not exist.
If those 100m passengers are all passengers who would have travelled on the classic lines anyway, then a shiny new line is, by definition, pointless.
Are you trying to argue there's a massive untapped market to get from London to Birmingham which isn't currently met by the 8tph between the two cities?
Maybe there is a vast untapped market of people wanting to get to Birmingham 20 minutes faster, in which case I'll eat my hat. Harris Tweed trilby, since you ask.
It's too expensive for what it does. For the price, it should do more.
It's too expensive for what it does. For the price, it should do more. For the current price, it should serve Liverpool, it should serve Sheffield, it shouldn't just stop with a shrug in a field just outside Lichfield.
The fact it doesn't, and you have to pretend that HS2 will go to somewhere it won't (captive trains, which were meant to deliver essential benefits, can't go on classic lines, so they've been binned off), shows just how much of a disaster the whole project really and truly is.
If a city doesn't have a high speed line to the city limits, it doesnt have high speed rail.
Is that really the case, though? Don't forget I lived in Hemel Hempstead for years, I know what the service is like. During the day I had 5tph towards London (4 to Euston, 1 to the WLL) and a 10-minute frequency during the peak. I only failed to get a seat when London Midland, in their infinite wisdom, stuck a 4-car on a peak train. Does Hemel need more than 5tph? Is that worth £55-100bn?
Nuneaton? When I criticised Virgin for abandoning the Trent Valley towns, I was told nobody used them and it was for The Greater Good. There's plenty of capacity for WCML expresses to stop at Lichfield, Tamworth, Rugby and Stafford. Virgin just didn't want to.
Ironically many of those particular benefits were mostly there when EPS was installed on the MML for 221s to tilt. Arriva binned the equipment. Says a lot, really.
If it doesn't go to Liverpool, Liverpool doesn't have HS2. An afterthought on slow lines from a small market town 50 miles away (or, in phase one, a small marlet town 150 miles away) is not high speed rail.
They will not "fan out", they're building a single HS line from Euston to Birmingham, nowhere else.
Apart from Crewe, then Manchester and Leeds. But they’re suburbs of Birmingham, right?
Phase 1, the only phase guaranteed to be built (and even then...) is for HS trains to go from London to Birmingham. HS trains will go nowhere else.
It's too expensive for what it does. For the price, it should do more. For the current price, it should serve Liverpool, it should serve Sheffield, it shouldn't just stop with a shrug in a field just outside Lichfield.
The fact it doesn't, and you have to pretend that HS2 will go to somewhere it won't (captive trains, which were meant to deliver essential benefits, can't go on classic lines, so they've been binned off), shows just how much of a disaster the whole project really and truly is.
If a city doesn't have a high speed line to the city limits, it doesnt have high speed rail.
Ironically many of those particular benefits were mostly there when EPS was installed on the MML for 221s to tilt. Arriva binned the equipment. Says a lot, really.
Indeed.
Some major projects have a clear and obvious necessity. Crossrail is staggeringly expensive, but there is a clear need which isn't based on nebulous "benefits". Anyone who's ever used the Central Line in the peak knows what the clear need is.
There really isn't that for HS2.
"It'll clear space on the southern WCML". The outer-urban stations get 5tph already, how many more do they need?
"It'll speed journeys". To Birmingham, yes. But not many other places. I live in Newcastle, I've no desire to go via Birmingham to get to London. The ECML is plenty fast enough. Saying HS2 will benefit me is insulting my intelligence.
"It'll help freight". Freight doesn't go on HS2. The intermodal freight is to Scotland, and the extra freight paths can't be there because- north of Lichfield- HS2 trains will be running in the existing Pendolino paths. And as they won't tilt, they won't be as fast as the existing trains, so you get fewer paths.
As for cost, if there's change from £100bn I'll eat my other hat (grey twill). That's an awful lot of money for a project whose business case is already based on very weak financial arguments. The same Tory politicians gushing over HS2 will, naturally, say we can't afford free broadband.
The whole thing screams white elephant vanity project. The second they decided that OOC wasn't sexy enough to be a terminus, and spent all that money bulldozing half of Camden, it proved it to me.
Even the most avid supporters of HS2 wouldn't advocate leaving full planning permission and financial provision on the shelf for five years. For a start, the costs would escalate iaw inflation*, which the uninitiated public (and dishonest media) would scream such rubbish as "HS2 costs out of control" and "eye-watering waste of money that could have been avoided four years ago with smart timetabling". As HS2 moves forward into full scale construction, we can expect the irrational rants from the few to reach a crescendo, - no political party would deliberately give time to that.The easiest way of proving the necessity of HS2 would be to get all the legislation finished but pause construction until the demand is obvious to Joe Public. He can then wait 7 years for construction! I am surprised the Tories didn't propose a 5 year pause until after the next general election (in theory December 2024). Avoids the political damage of cancellation or spiralling construction costs.
Possibly for only a short time, once open to Crewe (which it will likely do from day 1 with the delays) then there will be extra freight paths to Crewe as it is very rare for them not to end up in Basford Hall. As for Intermodals on the WCML only going to Scotland, try adding in Trafford Park, Lawley St, Hams Hall, Ditton and other freight to Garston etc.."It'll help freight". Freight doesn't go on HS2. The intermodal freight is to Scotland, and the extra freight paths can't be there because- north of Lichfield- HS2 trains will be running in the existing Pendolino paths. And as they won't tilt, they won't be as fast as the existing trains, so you get fewer paths.
Are you considering that is enough now, or 20, 30 years from now?Is that really the case, though? Don't forget I lived in Hemel Hempstead for years, I know what the service is like. During the day I had 5tph towards London (4 to Euston, 1 to the WLL) and a 10-minute frequency during the peak. I only failed to get a seat when London Midland, in their infinite wisdom, stuck a 4-car on a peak train. Does Hemel need more than 5tph? Is that worth £55-100bn?
Stevenage and Peterborough get excellent services, thanks to Thameslink (another expensive project with a clear aim and a clear benefit).
Believe me, there isn'tNuneaton? When I criticised Virgin for abandoning the Trent Valley towns, I was told nobody used them and it was for The Greater Good. There's plenty of capacity for WCML expresses to stop at Lichfield, Tamworth, Rugby and Stafford. Virgin just didn't want to.
Phase 1, the only phase guaranteed to be built (and even then...) is for HS trains to go from London to Birmingham. HS trains will go nowhere else.