As someone weirdly agrees, the north needs is some electrification and new carriages, at relatively low expense.
Yes, but we can't get that money because it's being hoovered up into things like Crossrail. NGT in Leeds might get cancelled for want of £76m from the DfT, despite having a CBR of 3.86. £76m is 0.5% of the Crossrail budget.
While it is true than individually, Crossrail has a higher CBR, that's inaccurately measured against other individual projects. The real comparison that needs to be done is Crossrail 2, on its own, against a £16bn package of improvements for the rest of the country.
Yes, new carriages & wiring would be nice, but there are also some other pretty substantial projects could do with being done (just from West Yorks)
1. Re-quadrupling Dewsbury-Diggle, including station re-openings & openings along the line to increase capacity sufficiently for 6tph Leeds-Manchester and half-hourly Leeds-Huddersfield & Huddersfield-Manchester stopping services.
2. Bradford Crossrail, linking the Airedale & Wharfedale and Caldervale lines, as well as re-opening Low Moor-Thornhill Lees, to provide direct through services from Sheffield & Wakefield to the Spen towns & Bradford
3. Massive station & line re-opening programme across Greater Leeds
4. Leeds city centre improvements-huge concourse upgrade of Leeds City station, plus quadrupling of the Viaduct through Leeds City Centre, and a new station at Marsh Lane.
5. Building of Leeds Tbus not only within Leeds, but connecting out to Bradford & Wakefield to alleviate existing highly congested bus routes.
In addition to this one area, there's a list the length of your arm for expansions to Merseyrail, the T&W, the Metrolink & Midland Metro. We can't get them, because the entire budget is being taken up by Crossrail.
Those projects, taken together, along with a relaxation of planning laws in the North, would facilitate a massive rebalancing away from London that would have hugely beneficial effects.