Capacity: extra tracks alongside existing rather than build HS2?

[Gathursty]

Is it not cheaper and more practical to solve the capacity problem of HS2 by just adding an extra track judiciously along the WCML and by extension everywhere that currently has capacity issues?

 

[JonathanH]

Is it not cheaper and more practical to solve the capacity problem of HS2 by just adding an extra track judiciously along the WCML and by extension everywhere that currently has capacity issues?

No, definitely not - discussed many times - there are houses and buildings right up to the railway. All the stations would need to be rebuilt. No

 

[Midnight Sun]

Trent Valley quadrupling took four years, with the line closed more or less every weekend.

 

[Gathursty]

Surely HS2 has to buy it's way across farmland and various properties as well though...?

 

[JonathanH]

Surely HS2 has to buy it's way across farmland and various properties as well though...?

Yes, but there are more properties next to the existing railway than there are on the route which has been selected. You have to rebuild bridges, viaducts, tunnels, stations etc, all whilst the railway remains open or during weekend closures and cope with all the twists and turns in the route put in by the original builders. It just isn't practical at all. There is plenty to read on this topic on the forum.

 

[MarkyT]

Surely HS2 has to buy it's way across farmland and various properties as well though...?

...but it can and has been designed to avoid as many developments and sensitive environmental locations as possible en route. Alternatives closely following existing routes would be guaranteed to involve far more demolition of politically difficult residential property that has clustered around those railways over the last 150 years, and just as much environmental impact. Following the WCML in particular would lock in the tight curvature that resulted in tilting trains being ordered for the last major route modernisation.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Is it not cheaper and more practical to solve the capacity problem of HS2 by just adding an extra track judiciously along the WCML and by extension everywhere that currently has capacity issues?

HS2 is designed to relieve the Midland Main Line, East Coast Main Line And West Coast Main Line. Adding Two extra tracks between Chesterfield and Leeds, London to York, London to Birmingham, Rugby to Manchester and Crewe to Wigan is definitely more expensive than building a new lines. Upgrading 3 railways is more expensive than building one new one

 

[AM9]

So the answer to the op's "just adding an extra track judiciously along the WCML ..." is yes you can, and the result of a 'judicious' track addition is to separate it from the clutteer of the existing main lines as much as possible, including across (relatively) low-cost farmland with judicious use of tunnels and cuttings. In other words, this topic has been throughly thought through by the HS2 planners, then surveyed and engineered to create the current judicious route. It has also been debated numerous times on this forum, each time the consensus has been the same, i.e. the route that will be built is the only practical one that delivers all of the benefits.