I had to sit down and study this post for some time to ascertain just how.many illogical points are made in it.
The point of lower speed is lower cost and higher capacity.
Your point about maintaining highest possible speeds to justify HS2 seeving Leeds and points north raises the question of whether it is the best way to serve places so far off its core route.
You impose this odd arbitrary criterion that any additional paths added to HS2 by increasing capacity must consist of captive services to Manchester and Birmingham. There is no reason whatsoever for that, except maybe you can get the highest absolute number of seats onto HS2 that way. Maybe if the trunk line was cheaper, we could afford a greater extent of captive line, and send more seats to other destinations.
It doesn't seem to worry you that HS2 will be full from day one, but will not serve many substantial urban areas, will serve others inadequately, and will in some cases lead to a worse service for the cities concerned.
I keep asking this question on this forum but no-one ever wants to answer it: donpeople who argue that HS2 must be built without any variation whatsoever from the current plan ever ask themselves why the project has so little support, even among people who want to see more people using rail, and why it has virtually no support outside areas which will have enhanced commuter services to Euston following it, and the handful of cities which will receive captive services to their city centres ? I find this particularly odd on a thread which is meant to be about why people are opposed to HS2. Nobody seems to want to address the actual.thread subject.
Another persistent feature on this thread is that anyone who questions any aspect of HS2 is immediately popped into the 'anti' category. HS2's proponents might perhaps want to reflect on the lack of support for the project and try to get people favourable to the idea of a new north-south line in principle on side.
Why do we need more capacity than double the existing, with then now retained in the existing WCML?
If we slow down the trains to get more capacity, other than the core stations where else will these extra service be able to serve? Given that the existing rail lines are very busy and is the main point of providing a new pair of lines.
It's unlikely that extra services to Scotland could run, or if so maybe one or two.
However if we're gaining 6 that still leaves 4.
Although that's only half the story as the London Leeds/York/Newcastle times won't be faster, so there's likely to be extra paths so as to not over provide capacity. Such could provide extra paths to be used to serve, where exactly?
Before you suggest other urban places which are currently served by WCML services, these will benefit by the majority of long distract services being removed from the WCML. Whilst those which remain will have fewer passengers on board, which then provides more space for those areas.
However if it is such a roaring success then there's going to be a good case for expanding the High Speed lines which we have. However in the meantime we need to create a line which tries to bring the widest number of benefits to as many people as possible. That is likely to look like something which doesn't do everything is trying to do well (Jake of all trades and master of none), however that doesn't mean that we shouldn't build it. What we should do though is to ensure that if we were to expand the network that there is consideration given to how this would work.
I would suggest that there's a lot of opposition from groups of people who fall into some of the following camps:
- those who want to pay as little tax as possible and don't like big infrastructure projects
- those who don't want rail (for many reasons, sometimes linked to the above)
- those who it impacts on that they are being required to move
- those who want to carry on flying and see that HS2 could limit the numbers doing so, which in turn is likely to reduce the number of services available to them
- those who want to stop the over development of the UK or other environmental reasons
- those who think that it will harm the existing rail network (remember that Beeching's idea was to cut the local lines and create a core intercity route to make it profitable)
- those that want better rail for the services which directly benefit them, which HS2 doesn't
- other reasons which I've not identified
On the supporting side there's quite a much shorter list.
Then there's a whole load of people who don't care much either way.
As such the level of support is likely to be, or at least appear, much lower.
Many of those who support HS2 then try and explain why it's needed, why some of the arguments against are flawed and generally try and inform as to why if should gain more support.
Even if that more support is so that those who like driving don't have to share the roads with as many other people are now people then use rail.