Government announces independent review into HS2 programme

Railman said:

Maybe we should run a poll to see what people think is the most likely outcome.

1 Scrap altogether
2 London to Birmingham only
3 London to Birmingham/Crewe only
4 The full monty with an open cheque book
5 options 2 or 3 but at existing TGV speeds and alignment/route tweeks

Click to expand...

More than happy to start one.

shakey1961 said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread as I've not read through the 8 pages so far. I will admit I am far from being an expert or have all the knowledge about HS2, but we are talking about spending the thick end of nearly £100 billion on this project to slice just 20 minutes of a journey time between London and Birmingham. Are people that bothered about a miserly 20 minutes? The UK is a smaller country than France or Germany or any of the EU countries so I don't believe we need such a high-speed rail network.

Wouldn't some of the money be better spent on upgrading our present infrastructure?
1. Upgrade the WCML to enable the Pendolinos to reach their maximum speed they were designed for at 140mph.
2. Straighten out the WCML to enable number one above. Build the new straighter track alongside the WCML, therefore, less or no disruption to the present services

What time saving would that gain? 10 minutes maybe? I have no idea. I do feel my two suggestions above would cost a lot less than HS2.

With high-speed internet and a connected society, do people (and I'm thinking of business people) really have to make these journeys in the first place?

Click to expand...

£100bn (although probably less) isn't just for London Birmingham, however the journey time she saving is ~35 minutes for that leg.

It also serves Manchester (1 hour faster), Leeds/York and Scotland (1 hour faster) from London. However journey time savings from Birmingham would be significant (45 minutes Manchester and an hour Leeds/York).

It's mostly about capacity to carry 100 million passengers a year, as well as many more millions who would then be able to use more frequent and/or longer local services.

shakey1961 said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread as I've not read through the 8 pages so far. I will admit I am far from being an expert or have all the knowledge about HS2, but we are talking about spending the thick end of nearly £100 billion on this project to slice just 20 minutes of a journey time between London and Birmingham. Are people that bothered about a miserly 20 minutes? The UK is a smaller country than France or Germany or any of the EU countries so I don't believe we need such a high-speed rail network.

Wouldn't some of the money be better spent on upgrading our present infrastructure?
1. Upgrade the WCML to enable the Pendolinos to reach their maximum speed they were designed for at 140mph.
2. Straighten out the WCML to enable number one above. Build the new straighter track alongside the WCML, therefore, less or no disruption to the present services

What time saving would that gain? 10 minutes maybe? I have no idea. I do feel my two suggestions above would cost a lot less than HS2.

With high-speed internet and a connected society, do people (and I'm thinking of business people) really have to make these journeys in the first place?

Click to expand...

.....

1. What is your evidence that it's the "thick end of £100bn"?
2. It's not just 20 mins to Birmingham.
3. Running the Pendolinos at 140mph would require an entirely new signalling system.
4. What do you mean by "straightening out the WCML"?
5. You then talk about building a new straighter track alongside the WCML. Good luck putting that through the likes of Watford, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford etc etc
6. It would create huge disruption, not "less or no disruption".
7. "Is your journey really necessary?" may have worked in World War II. We live in a free and wealthy society. People want to travel.

6Gman said:

.....


4. What do you mean by "straightening out the WCML"?
.

Click to expand...

HS2 *is* straightening out the WCML!

6Gman said:

.....

1. What is your evidence that it's the "thick end of £100bn"?
2. It's not just 20 mins to Birmingham.
3. Running the Pendolinos at 140mph would require an entirely new signalling system.
4. What do you mean by "straightening out the WCML"?
5. You then talk about building a new straighter track alongside the WCML. Good luck putting that through the likes of Watford, Rugby, Nuneaton, Stafford etc etc
6. It would create huge disruption, not "less or no disruption".
7. "Is your journey really necessary?" may have worked in World War II. We live in a free and wealthy society. People want to travel.

Click to expand...

Like I say, I have not studied it in detail, but in trying to answer your questions...

1. What I've heard in the media
2. See 1 above
3. Wasn't aware it would need a new signal system
4. You would only need to straighten the more curved sections not the majority of the whole length
5. If there are areas that can't be straightened then they can't be done - you wouldn't do areas that would be prohibitive.
6. Would it really cause that much disruption?
7. I wasn't stopping people from travelling. People are free to go where they want, but in a connected world can certain meetings etc not be done over the internet?

Why do we need to reduce these times? Are people in such a rush that have to almost be teleported (eg Star Trek) to their destination?

shakey1961 said:

Like I say, I have not studied it in detail, but in trying to answer your questions...

1. What I've heard in the media
2. See 1 above
3. Wasn't aware it would need a new signal system
4. You would only need to straighten the more curved sections not the majority of the whole length
5. If there are areas that can't be straightened then they can't be done - you wouldn't do areas that would be prohibitive.
6. Would it really cause that much disruption?
7. I wasn't stopping people from travelling. People are free to go where they want, but in a connected world can certain meetings etc not be done over the internet?

Why do we need to reduce these times? Are people in such a rush that have to almost be teleported (eg Star Trek) to their destination?

Click to expand...

Working on outdated infrastructure will take a lot of time to plan, will effect services for years on years and would probably overrun. We are working for a modern and utilised transport system, not to shove people into their cars to create more road congestion and pollution.

I would definitely terminate the service at old oak common. Crossrail’s 24tph 9 car service could cope. (A Ten car 30tph Crossrail is a possibility in the future) There would also be plenty of people using the old oak common to change for services to the West, reading and onto Heathrow. The question is not one of weather Crossrail could cope but weather the Victoria and northern lines could cope at Euston if Crossrail 2 is not built. Not terminating at Euston would of course inconvenience people wanting to go to Kings cross and Euston, but most other London terminals would be quicker to use Crossrail. Liverpool street for example, Even if HS2 terminated at Euston, and Crossrail 2 is not built then it’s a 5-10 minute walk to Euston square the 20 minutes on the Underground. Whereas it would be 2o minutes away on Crossrail 1 from old oak common.

If course the other elephant in the room is the lack of a link between HS1 and HS2.
That ought to be looked at again.

shakey1961 said:

Like I say, I have not studied it in detail, but in trying to answer your questions...

1. What I've heard in the media
2. See 1 above
3. Wasn't aware it would need a new signal system
4. You would only need to straighten the more curved sections not the majority of the whole length
5. If there are areas that can't be straightened then they can't be done - you wouldn't do areas that would be prohibitive.
6. Would it really cause that much disruption?
7. I wasn't stopping people from travelling. People are free to go where they want, but in a connected world can certain meetings etc not be done over the internet?

Why do we need to reduce these times? Are people in such a rush that have to almost be teleported (eg Star Trek) to their destination?

Click to expand...

The objective of HS2 is not just to knock 20 minutes, or whatever, off London-Birmingham times.
It's to transfer the fast long-distance trains off the WCML south of Crewe, leaving the capacity to be filled with many more regional/local/freight services in a way which is currently impossible.
The extension to East Midlands/Sheffield/Leeds/York is to do the same for the MML and ECML.
This avoids the decade(s) of disruption to upgrade the Victorian routes which would deliver far less than HS2.
The last WCML upgrade took £8 billion and a decade to fail to deliver what was promised (140mph).
It also drove passengers away with the continual closure of the route for the work to be done.

CharlesR said:

Working on outdated infrastructure will take a lot of time to plan, will effect services for years on years and would probably overrun. We are working for a modern and utilised transport system, not to shove people into their cars to create more road congestion and pollution.

Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to shove people into cars, I'm trying to make a case for using our present infrastructure and make it more efficient. I don't have any figures, but i would suggest straightening the WCML and installing a new signalling system to run Pendolinos at 140mph would cost less than the billions oto construct HS2.

Aictos said:

I beg to differ as it has been explained multiple times but since you insist on being so ignorant about the benefits to local areas as well, let me explain as I understand it how HS2 will improve the Birmingham area as a former resident.

At Birmingham New Street, Virgin Train has the xx:24 terminator from London Euston which sits in a platform until it forms the xx:50 to London Euston now that's 26 minutes in total.

26 minutes in total so that's on average 4 local services that could use the platform that is freed up by not having a Virgin Trains hog the platform for that length of time, 4 local services which instead of being spread over numerous platforms would have a cascading effect in that the former platforms they used to use would now be available for more local services.

Now by removing the 2tph that Virgin Trains terminates at Birmingham New Street and that comes to 52 minutes in every hour that platforms aren't being hogged by a VT which seeing how busy New Street can be and which needs every bit of capacity it can get, that freed up capacity can be used for more regional and local services.

Now try to explain how HS2 wouldn't improve the Birmingham area....

Click to expand...

I still think you will have 2tph of Pendolino trains between Birmingham New Street and Euston but my view is there would also be another 2tph LM type services to Euston on the fast lines something like Watford, MK, Rugby, Coventry, International and then New Street. In both cases I think they would extend north beyond Birmingham New Street.

CentralTrainer said:

Shapps could find out the costs tomorrow.

What he means by deciding at “the end of the year” - is in other words, after the General Election, which Shapps and his pals hope to win, will be after the Press and Pundit Establishment has forgotten about it. There will, no doubt, be claims that savings have been identified here and there that would not otherwise have been identified, and then the idea of scrapping the project will be quietly binned. And there are good reasons for that.

One, the extra capacity which HS2 provides is already badly needed. The problem which HS2 addresses - getting more freight off the already overcrowded motorway network, while giving more capacity for passenger trains on the West Coast Main Line, Midland Main Line and East Coast Main Line - will not go away merely because its existence is inconvenient to Tory politicians and their lobby group pals.

Two, the project is already at an advanced stage, with significant amounts of demolition already undertaken around London’s Euston station, and site clearance well under way around the site of the Old Oak Common hub in West London.

Three, regeneration of the Old Oak Common area is dependent on HS2 going ahead: developers have been brought on board on that premise. If Shapps, or anyone else, cans the project, the Government will face more than cancellation charges.

Four, the West Coast Partnership - the franchise to replace Virgin Trains - was let on the basis of HS2 going ahead to at least Phase 1 of the project. Bidders have already been invited to tender for the first trains for the high speed route. So that’s going to be more bills to pay in the case of cancellation. And we’re not done yet.

Five, how would Shapps explain cancellation to the Mayors, and indeed the people, of Birmingham, Greater Manchester and Merseyside? But he won’t have to.

This is a pre-election stunt. It’s more Tory dishonesty. And it will convince no-one.

Click to expand...

The savings identified we should be careful what we wish for. They may create constraints that cost more to solve later on than if they had been left in the plan in the first place. Secondly just look at Crossrail - it identified something like £1bn of savings but these have gone with increased costs. Whether they were ever likely to be actual savings we shall never know and did those up front savings actually now cost us as taxpayers further down the line?

underbank said:

If he promises something better and more appealing to the people of those towns, then it'd be a vote winner there. HS2 will have very little benefit for huge numbers of locals in Manchester who desperately want better local services for commuting/shopping/schools, etc. Plans to improve the existing local public transport in the short term will make the locals far happier than a 10/15 year plan for high speed trains to London.

Click to expand...

I disagree, the Virgin VHF Timetable actaully removed local services in favour of Pendolinos to / from London. HS2 should enable these to be put back in as those more local to Birmingham and Manchester suggest are needed.

diffident said:

Yes, and there is also the very thorny issue of contracts worth eye-wateringly large amounts of money that are already signed which have hefty get out clauses.

The other thing that gets me is that comments are turning up on the news, and on other websites about how HS2 should be scrapped and the money put into other rail projects.

I can guarantee that if HS2 is cancelled, the DfT will not see a penny of the money.

Click to expand...

Slight subtle correction - railways will not see any of the money - it may well be spent on roads despite the thorny issues of the pollution they now have come to represent.

CharlesR said:

I just don’t see why services to Bristol, Swansea, Cheltenham, Hereford and Penzance would need to serve another major station just minutes after Paddington.

Click to expand...

An advantage of Old Oak is that it should take pressure of Paddington as the main interchange facility between GWML and Crossrail services, plus links to other parts of London. Its also mentioned about Old Oak's regeneration potential therefore people wouldn't have to travel to Paddington and back out again.

GRALISTAIR said:

I found this statement in the terms of reference from the DfT interesting

QUOTE whether and how the project could be reprioritised; in particular, whether and, if so how, Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) (including the common sections with HS2 Phase 2b) could be prioritised over delivering the southern sections of HS2 End quote

or electrify Birmingham-Derby-Sheffield-Leeds/York/Doncaster and the rest of the MML

Click to expand...

To be honest we need Birmingham to York / Doncaster and MML wired anyway whether HS2 and / or NPR happens or not - indded the same should be said for TPE between York and Manchester.

shakey1961 said:

I wasn't trying to shove people into cars, I'm trying to make a case for using our present infrastructure and make it more efficient. I don't have any figures, but i would suggest straightening the WCML and installing a new signalling system to run Pendolinos at 140mph would cost less than the billions oto construct HS2.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately that will come up against the same problem as HS2 in terms of construction of diversions to WCML. NIMBYism.

LNW-GW Joint said:

The objective of HS2 is not just to knock 20 minutes, or whatever, off London-Birmingham times.
It's to transfer the fast long-distance trains off the WCML south of Crewe, leaving the capacity to be filled with many more regional/local/freight services in a way which is currently impossible.
The extension to East Midlands/Sheffield/Leeds/York is to do the same for the MML and ECML.
This avoids the decade(s) of disruption to upgrade the Victorian routes which would deliver far less than HS2.
The last WCML upgrade took £8 billion and a decade to fail to deliver what was promised (140mph).
It also drove passengers away with the continual closure of the route for the work to be done.

Click to expand...

And if you want to go further north you're still going to have to change at Crewe! I don't see HS2 going up to Preston and further north, so having to change you are losing time, which if you stayed on a Pendolino from Euston to Glasgow, you wouldn't need to change.

shakey1961 said:

And if you want to go further north you're still going to have to change at Crewe! I don't see HS2 going up to Preston and further north, so having to change you are losing time, which if you stayed on a Pendolino from Euston to Glasgow, you wouldn't need to change.

Click to expand...

No, think of High Speed Lines as rail motorways.

A just like a car can come off a residential road and drive onto the M1 to Leeds, a train from Glasgow will come off the current WCML at Crewe and use HS2 to London.

The whole point is capacity. Most InterCity trains get diverted onto HS2 and the WCML will have space for everything else.

shakey1961 said:

And if you want to go further north you're still going to have to change at Crewe! I don't see HS2 going up to Preston and further north, so having to change you are losing time, which if you stayed on a Pendolino from Euston to Glasgow, you wouldn't need to change.

Click to expand...

I'm no fan of HS2, but that's not right. The plan is for classic compatible trains (ie built to the existing WCML loading gauge) to run though service further north.

LeeLivery said:

No, think of High Speed Lines as rail motorways.

A just like a car can come off a residential road and drive onto the M1 to Leeds, a train from Glasgow will come off the current WCML at Crewe and use HS2 to London.

The whole point is capacity. Most InterCity trains get diverted onto HS2 and the WCML will have space for everything else.

Click to expand...

Well, under the circumstances, perhaps I'm actually learning something. Thank you for enlightening me.

shakey1961 said:

Well, under the circumstances, perhaps I'm actually learning something. Thank you for enlightening me.

Click to expand...

No worries. Southeastern Highspeed in Kent and the French TGV are good case studies for this example.

ABB125 said:

• Look at what savings could be made by reducing the speed from 250mph to 200mph (320km/h), not because of the arguments frequently stated by those against HS2 that slower=cheaper, but because it may permit some realignment of the route (due to sharper curves etc) which may reduce the cost substantially. (Note my use of "could", "may" etc.)

Click to expand...

Surely the route of the first phase is predominately fixed, to start playing around with it could mean new consent, new compulsory purchase, selling back land already acquired etc. It wouldnt surprise me if realignment of the route would add to costs not reduce them.

hwl said:

The 40 year Gatwick Airport 2nd runway moratorium expires at Midnight tonight. Gatwick has fulfilled all the requirements for second runway under the agreement and in return all the local authority signatories have to support Gatwick' planning application when it goes in.

Click to expand...

Excellent news. While I'm in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, I've always supported a second one at Gatwick too - especially as it could be delivered quicker. Build them both and there will be enough runway capacity for a generation.

trebor79 said:

If course the other elephant in the room is the lack of a link between HS1 and HS2.
That ought to be looked at again.

Click to expand...

Agreed. That was an Epic Fail.

Howardh said:

Agreed. That was an Epic Fail.

Click to expand...

Why?

Although it would be useful, actually how many people would use it?

It's much like the link to Heathrow, it would eat up paths on the core route, however many would still need to change trains to use it.

It's better to design for what we know it will need to do and then look at optional extra items at a later date.

camflyer said:

Excellent news. While I'm in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, I've always supported a second one at Gatwick too - especially as it could be delivered quicker. Build them both and there will be enough runway capacity for a generation.

Click to expand...

Circa 1/3 of the capacity of the 2nd runway could be used without any new terminal building which adds extra capacity way cheaper than anything at Heathrow (where the changes are going to cost users £25 extra on a return trip)

hwl said:

Circa 1/3 of the capacity of the 2nd runway could be used without any new terminal building which adds extra capacity way cheaper than anything at Heathrow (where the changes are going to cost users £25 extra on a return trip)

Click to expand...

Gatwick's latest plan has a cost of "only" £500m which would involve widening the current emergency runway and expanding the existing terminals. Seems like a no-brainer to do that while Heathrow is still sorting itself out.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-emergency-runway-to-increase-flight-capacity

Roast Veg said:

It will do a lot for anybody who doesn't already live on top of Nottingham or Derby stations, as railheading to Toton will be far more preferable.

Click to expand...

A friend of mine who knows nothing about railways but regularly uses the A52 between Derby and Nottingham declared "what f**king idiot came up with that idea?" when he heard that Toton was the planned location for the East Midlands hub station; and I can understand why he made that comment.

I live (in Derby) about 8 miles from Toton, and on a Sunday morning it can be driven from my home to where the A52 crosses the Erewash Valley line in about 10 minutes; but at many times during the day - and especially at peak times - this is impossible. And from the Nottingham side, it can be far worse; one Saturday, it took me longer to travel on the 'Red Arrow' express bus between the Nottingham city boundary at Priory Island and the next junction (by the Queen's Medical Centre) that it had taken to get from Derby bus station to Priory Island! And traffic northwards into north Nottingham/Hucknall/etc via the M1 and connecting roads beyond Junction 26 can also be horrendous at busy times.

And, of course, not everyone will use a car to get to their rail station.

If travelling from Derby to London by classic rail/HS2 via Toton, a shuttle will take about 15 minutes, and then - because of the size of the hub-station - a minimum of 10 minutes will be needed to change trains; on a fast Sheffield MML service, 25 minutes from Derby means you're at Wigston and only about an hour from St Pancras. So the journey time penalty by taking a direct MML service between Derby (and potentially Nottingham) and St Pancras is less than ten minutes more than going via Toton and HS2 to Euston; will this really result in HS2 abstracting much traffic from MML direct services? Personally, I don't think so; and this is without taking onward connections into account - a walk along the Euston Road between the two stations, especially on a cold, wet, winter night is not a pleasant experience, and it has to be recognised that the onward journey opportunities from St Pancras/King's Cross are far superior to those from Euston.

Certainly, HS2 has the potential to kill-off completely the small amount of traffic between Long Eaton and St Pancras, but I'm not sure about the other claims made on behalf of HS2; it won't be of any benefit at all for people travelling between Derby and Sheffield and Derby and Birmingham, and a direct sub-60 minute journey time between Nottingham and Birmingham via Derby should be possible, so again a slightly faster rail transit between these two cities with a change of train at Toton might not be very attractive if there is sufficient demand to support the introduction of a faster direct service than is presently provided.

The East Midlands hub doesn't have much benefit for southbound travel to London, but currently Northbound journeys from all three cities are fairly slow and terrible. I think there could be substantial improvements to journeys times and comfort levels for journeys to Leeds and beyond from the hub.

But yeah, the hub is a fairly terrible compromise to the problem of how to serve three cities at once.

Taunton said:

I agree. Look at the places which have both central and out-of-town stations, with frequent services. There's Derby and Nottingham, both with good demand to London. And then there's East Midlands Parkway

Click to expand...

There must be a lesson in this; problem is, I certainly don't know what the answer is - and I don't think anyone else does either!

If you're filling in a form on the internet, often it gives you an option of finding an address by inserting a postcode. If you insert, say, a DE24 postcode, it usually comes up with an address which shows Derby, then Derbyshire; however, if you insert NG10 3GL, the post code for Long Eaton station which is in the Derbyshire district of Erewash, the address comes up as Long Eaton, Nottingham. And both Trent Bridge cricket ground and Nottingham Forest's City Ground are in West Bridgford which is in Rushcliffe, but again they are shown as West Bridgford, Nottingham.

Now you don't see many people making their way to either Trent Bridge or the City Ground via East Midlands Parkway; but if you use road journey times given by tools such as Google Maps or the AA journey planner, the quickest way by rail from London to these destinations is by taking the Sheffield slow as far as Parkway then a taxi (if one's available at the station!). Similarly, the quickest way to Nottingham University from London (or Birmingham) is via Long Eaton and a taxi. And - surprisingly - using this combination of rail and road times (using the Sheffield slow), the quickest way to from London to parts of north Nottingham and Hucknall is also via East Midlands Parkway (then by using the M1 north to Junction 26).

There does seem to be some association between postal address (or name) and a railway station having the same name; I believe most people going by rail to Nottingham Uni, Trent Bridge, the City Ground, and most other places having Nottingham in their address would "automatically" select Nottingham station, even though it isn't necessarily the quickest way there.

Not sure how these observations read-over to HS2's East Midlands hub-station at Toton; but I'm sure that the name will have some effect upon usage, particularly for in-bound passengers.

As an aside, there was a period when East Midlands Airport had Nottingham added to its name as a prefix. One day, I got on an XC Nottingham - Cardiff service (at Nottingham), and a young woman with a VERY large suitcase got on and enquired if the train was going to Birmingham; I told her it was, and we subsequently got into conversation. I noticed that her case showed that she had flown into East Midlands, and I asker her why, if she was going to Birmingham by rail, she had first gone to Nottingham to catch her train when her total journey time would have been much quicker (and, no doubt, cheaper) if she had taken the Skylink bus from the airport to Derby station and then caught her train there. She looked at me a bit non-plussed, and from our subsequent conversation she had automatically thought that, because the airport included Nottingham in its name, that was the natural place to head for to catch her train to Birmingham.

I think this also shows how people associate names with locations; in this particular example, the woman had associated East Midlands Airport with Nottingham because the city's name was at the beginning of the airport's title, but people don't associate East Midlands Parkway with much of Greater Nottingham, even though it's only a few minutes drive along the A453 from the city's Clifton suburb (and its tram terminus).

Morgsie said:

Boris proposed the Thames Airport project and he supported the London Garden Bridge project, look what happened with them both. There is talk of a General Election, it could happen and Boris's giveaways like more money for the NHS and 20,000 extra coppers is seen as electioneering.

Lib Dems are in favour of HS2 though some Local LD Parties are opposed.

Click to expand...

The conference debate that made the Lib Dems (at least nationally) unequivocally HS2 was pretty fun to watch, because you could tell the southern speakers weren't happy about getting rid of the fudge, but the northern speakers were very pro-HS2.

That we managed to get the amendment through at a conference in Brighton speaks wonders.

Lord Berkeley was supposed to be on R4 this morning but did not. They interviewed a reporter instead.

There was an interview with an exec. from Siemens before 07:00. The entire R4 Today program will be on the iPlayer later today.


EDIT: changed post after Lord B. did not appear.

My guess is they will build pkaseone, then continue to Crew

shakey1961 said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread as I've not read through the 8 pages so far. I will admit I am far from being an expert or have all the knowledge about HS2, but we are talking about spending the thick end of nearly £100 billion on this project to slice just 20 minutes of a journey time between London and Birmingham. Are people that bothered about a miserly 20 minutes? The UK is a smaller country than France or Germany or any of the EU countries so I don't believe we need such a high-speed rail network.

Wouldn't some of the money be better spent on upgrading our present infrastructure?
1. Upgrade the WCML to enable the Pendolinos to reach their maximum speed they were designed for at 140mph.
2. Straighten out the WCML to enable number one above. Build the new straighter track alongside the WCML, therefore, less or no disruption to the present services

What time saving would that gain? 10 minutes maybe? I have no idea. I do feel my two suggestions above would cost a lot less than HS2.

With high-speed internet and a connected society, do people (and I'm thinking of business people) really have to make these journeys in the first place?

Click to expand...

shakey1961 said:

I don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread as I've not read through the 8 pages so far. I will admit I am far from being an expert or have all the knowledge about HS2, but we are talking about spending the thick end of nearly £100 billion on this project to slice just 20 minutes of a journey time between London and Birmingham. Are people that bothered about a miserly 20 minutes? The UK is a smaller country than France or Germany or any of the EU countries so I don't believe we need such a high-speed rail network.

Wouldn't some of the money be better spent on upgrading our present infrastructure?
1. Upgrade the WCML to enable the Pendolinos to reach their maximum speed they were designed for at 140mph.
2. Straighten out the WCML to enable number one above. Build the new straighter track alongside the WCML, therefore, less or no disruption to the present services

What time saving would that gain? 10 minutes maybe? I have no idea. I do feel my two suggestions above would cost a lot less than HS2.

With high-speed internet and a connected society, do people (and I'm thinking of business people) really have to make these journeys in the first place?

Click to expand...

I despair that after all this time there are still people who think HS2 isd about saving 20 minutes to Brum.
For God`s sake, it is about additional capacity, alot of it.
But when you build a new line why build it using Victorian technology and run at 100 mph, you build using the latest tech which happens to run at 200 mph and by default saves 20 mins to Brum (actually a bit more) but that is not the prime purpose. it is a by product.

I live 70 miles from the HS2 route and was only explaining to my neighbour yesterday why we will benefit as she similarly couldn`1t get it but then she isn`t on this forum.
My reply was all the expresses from the large cities would transfer to HS2 leaving the ECML: (and of course WCML and MML) largely free for a whole range of new services that currently cannot operate. That`s what HS2 ios about.