Are you absolutely convinced--fully--that a High Speed train which may not reach top speed until not long before it has to stop at Birmingham, is the best value investment for England (and I use England quite deliberately).
I can't say with 100% certainty that there isn't an even better infrastructure project we could build, but if there is, I've no idea what it could be.
I do know that HS2 is a
worthwhile investment for England however. As for not reaching top speed until Birmingham, this sounds like more of your inaccurate conjecture. I could imagine it taking five to ten minutes to get from standing to top speed, but no more than that.
I use "regions" to mean those parts of the country where HS2 means nothing to them. I used the SW England before now, one of the most economically crippled parts of the country, and was batted away as though I'd made some irrelevant point. It *is* relevant that, say, the NW and NE England would be left with 1980s stock and nothing new whilst a brand new, top-spec, high-speed line is built that goes straight into central London. The perception and the truth is - more investment for the south, nothing for the North.
Actually, HS2 is all about providing services to the north. That's its entire
raison d'etre, to connect major cities in the north to Birmingham and London, and beyond to HS1 and the rest of Europe.
And if we spent vast quantities of money on new rolling stock to replace the trains in the North, just because people think they're "too old", what benefit would that bring to the south west?
By scrapping HS2, the regions benefit from focused spending, rather than a London-centric, London-dedicated line that even avoids Oxford, Northampton and all the rest of it.
Crossrail is a London-dedicated service. The budget for it, last time I checked was about the same as HS2 phase 1. You tell me what's more London-centric, spending £20bn on a high speed line to Birmingham, or on 20 miles of commuter railway underneath zone 1?
And yet again, you completely ignore that places like Northampton
will benefit from freed up capacity on the WCML.
But like I said, the entire case has been replayed and repeated on this thread many a time, and I just can't agree with it. I don't agree that we need a HS line into London, I don't agree that the cost is justifiable, I don't agree with cutting 15 minutes off commuter times whilst the North gets nothing, I don't agree with the justification for the line being based on commuter behaviour in 2010/2013 when the line won't be open for another 20-odd years, I don't agree with any of it.
There's this crazy idea that it's only going to benefit London. The improved capacity and journey times will make improvements for anyone making long-distance journeys from north to south. I regularly travel between Southampton and Crewe. HS2 would actually benefit me doing that, even though I have very little to do with London.
As for the time improvments, it's more like 40 minutes on an average EUS-BHM journey, isn't it? That's actually a worthwhile figure to be able to save.
Cost-wise, it sounds like a big number, but with Crossrail costed at £17bn and the WCRM having cost around £8-10bn, it's not like the £20bn for phase 1 is actually all that expensive.
I agree with you on the 20-odd years though. Ideally we'd have phase 1 open by 2020 at the latest!
Surely that proves it's just a waste of money then, as the HS2 trains will not be stopping anywhere that people want to get to! :roll:
Actually, it's calling at some places where huge amounts of people want to get between; London and Birmingham (as well as all the CC services to destinations further north.) The places it doesn't call at are rural towns in Buckinghamshire that already have railway stations and will benefit from freed up capacity when Intercity services are removed from the WCML.