bananas
Member
HS2 phase 1's alignment choice mostly looks obviously sensible: run underneath the straightest existing northwesterly rail corridor out of central London (the New North Main Line), then in a nearly straight line from there to Birmingham. (Here I'm ignoring questions like "why choose London to Birmingham in the first place" and "why build a tunnel under empty countryside" (which I know the answers to but are not relevant to this thread))
But once you get to Birmingham, to the passing observer it almost looks like they've chosen the most expensive possible alignment. Why run straight through the middle of an existing road megajunction (A45, A452, A446, M6, and M42), complete with river to cross?
Evidently they wanted it to run along the Birmingham-Derby line in central Birmingham, and then unless they wanted to destroy half of Coleshill their only option was to put it through that gap between the M6 and M42.
But why did they want that particular route out of the city centre? Given the route they chose needed TBMs anyway (from Bromford to Water Orton), would it have been that much more expensive to build one much longer tunnel under more of Birmingham, like they're doing in London? Then you could also have had a more direct connection to Birmingham Airport and the National Exhibition Centre. Or extend the Bromford tunnel to go under Coleshill as well.
I presume they did have a good reason I haven't mentioned, but what?
But once you get to Birmingham, to the passing observer it almost looks like they've chosen the most expensive possible alignment. Why run straight through the middle of an existing road megajunction (A45, A452, A446, M6, and M42), complete with river to cross?
Evidently they wanted it to run along the Birmingham-Derby line in central Birmingham, and then unless they wanted to destroy half of Coleshill their only option was to put it through that gap between the M6 and M42.
But why did they want that particular route out of the city centre? Given the route they chose needed TBMs anyway (from Bromford to Water Orton), would it have been that much more expensive to build one much longer tunnel under more of Birmingham, like they're doing in London? Then you could also have had a more direct connection to Birmingham Airport and the National Exhibition Centre. Or extend the Bromford tunnel to go under Coleshill as well.
I presume they did have a good reason I haven't mentioned, but what?
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