You keep posting these large submissions and I'm sorry Ham, they do nothing for me.
The government could look at exactly the same info as you keep posting and decide "Don't care, we're axing it." At the end of the day, passenger numbers have peaked, the WCML is free of most congestion, and no justification exists for spending over £80bn on a subpar Heathrow express from Birmingham Airport.
Your repeated graphs and tables will count for nowt if the political reality dictates that the scheme had to be scrapped. And you know that.
It may well be that HS2 is ditched. The problem is that, whilst many state that we've reached peak train on the WCML they provide no evidence to the effect.
There are some which show (but only by stopping their graph a few years ago) that the rate of long distance rail growth is falling. However it's still growing. Unless you can provide evidence to prove that we are at peak train.
Whilst you're looking for something the last four quarters for Virgin trains have shown the following growth from the same quarter 12 months previously:
Q2 1.2%
Q1 0%
Q4 3.1%
Q3 3.0%
However that only part of the story, West Midlands Trains over the same timeframe have seen growth of:
Q2 11.5%
Q1 2.1%
Q4 5.1%
Q3 6.6%
Now not all of that will be on the WCML, but some of it is likely to be. Now in February is likely that there'll be an update to the data which informs my table and we'll see what they shows. However from the above it's unlikely that there'll be a fall.
The problem is that if we cancel HS2 and that growth continues then all that's going to happen is that it or something like it will get restarted a few years down the line.
Yes HS2 isn't run as well as many would like, yes it doesn't benefit every single rail journey, yes there's going to be people who will be able to suggest other options which may work. The problem is we come back to the same point, what is rail growth doing? Is it on track to meet expectations or is it not?
If it is what do we do to meet the demand from the about doubling of passengers which justified the building HS2?
Whilst there's schemes which could cater for that, what happens then if growth continues beyond that figure?
Until someone explains how reopening a branch line in (say) Wales or Cornwall or Yorkshire or Sussex is going to provide that capacity (and not actually make the problem worse by making rail travel to more places attractive) or explain how they're going to fit 14 coach trains into Liverpool station or whatever other when option they produce will cater for this demand, then HS2 looks like that it's the only scheme on the table.