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I have to say I enjoy all the posts (presumably from people who never use their services) defending poor little Northern. It's a joke franchise, consistently underresourced ever since I have used it, and running a token service since the pandemic. The root cause is central government's utter...

Depends how you define 'efficiency' for the purposes of running a passenger railway. Does it relate to cheapness / ease for the TOC, or something which actually manages to transport passengers between the destinations the TOC is supposed to serve ?

Several posters on this thread have argued that there is no need to provide a south/southwestern connection from HS2 to XC at Brum because everyone will be able to change to HS2 at Brum. That suggested to me that they were advocating XC stopped running north of Brum. Unless we're keeping XC...

If I have identified the site proposed for the HS2 station (the huge open area alongside Curzon Street, bisected by New Canal St) it is already a substantial way east of the city centre and the existing stations. Adding a western throat and curve will not make much difference. 'We've already...

How is there not ? HS2 has taken 10 years already and it looks as if it will be another 15+ before the current plan is completed. That's the life span of at least 5 parliaments in normal times (as it is we've had 5 since HS2 was announced). The thread of this title might suggest that someone...

Simple questions. What's the total cost of the other projects listed by Felix ? And what will be the total cost of Crossrail ? (Ok, maybe that second question is not so simple.)

I assume that you're not a fan of the boomerang tunnel proposed to permit 'NPR' services from west of Manchester to enter the centre from the east, bend round and head east again, all thanks to the way HS2 has been planned ? That tunnel, after all, will have to go under central Manchester, with...

Sounds good, but it is the HS2 fan club on here who are arguing tooth and nail against any expansion of the scope of the project to serve more places, or even against higher capacity on the line planned. Except we are building for services faster than anywhere in the world's, and speeds which...

How about the argument that there should not be electrification from Brum to the south west, because HS2's opponents would try to argue that the cost of this should be considered part of the HS2 budget ? Or that there should be no connection at Brum for services from the south and south west...

You're king of the partial data. What fraction of the total cost of Crossrail does the total cost of all those improvements (many of which, by the way, wre necessary to.reace worn out assets) comprise ? Again, if you bothered reading my posts instead of endlessly regurgitating your own...

The government is casting around looking for reasons to scale back on what is already supposed to be its settled policy. Again, I struggle to share your optimism

Have a look back through this thread at the number of people arguing against other improvements to the rail network because HS2 must have priority.

Well I stand corrected, except for one small problem. I specifically said from May 2018 onwards, which your data omits. Also, curiously, you haven't included Virgin. If there was some urgent infrastructure deficit on the WCML explaining these problems, I assume that it would affect Virgin...

Again, HS2's proponents might want to bear this in mind. Maybe encouraging the government to actually spend some money on rail across most of the country would be a start.

In which case, I'm sure you'll have no problem suggesting which WCML services should be cut to sort this mess out.

It may have escaped your attention, but there is a big area of cleared land just to the east of Birmingham city centre, which some people seem to think would be a really good place to put a railway station. There is also a thing called a 'tunnel', which you might have come across before. Some...

But we do need a southwestern extension, if we're not forever to have a situation where passengers who currently enjoy a single journey (albeit a slow and overcrowded one) won't forever be made to change trains and shuffle between stations at Brum. I struggle to see how anyone could argue...

Let's pick this apart. Different people define 'the north's differently, but taking a definition which differentiates it from the Midlands, very little of HS2 is going to be built in the north. The specific bit I think shouldn't be built (in the short term, while money is short) is the...

I don't think I've ever seen so many unsupported assertions in one place.

Well perhaps if HS2's proponents were able to.put forward a coherent rationale for the project, rather than whinging because their opponents' PR is better, these problems might be overcome. Here's a suggestion. Why not fit HS2 into a programme of improvement for all main lines, so that...