Having now read the report, it seems to be a decent piece of work, as one would expect. A few mistakes here and there (some ‘existing’ journey times are wrong, notably London - Newcastle shown as 3h13 compared to a typical 2h50, more of which later), it clearly there has been some heavy lifting in the analysis.
It all seems quite sensible. If you’d said to Northern / Midland political leaders 5 years ago that there would be a recommendation to spend a
minimum of £44bn, and up to £90bn on new and upgraded railways, in addition to HS2 Phases 1 + 2a, they would have bitten your hand off, reattached it, and bitten it off again. It’s far, far more than has been spent in ‘the south’. What’s happened in the interim is that the various political leaders have got their crayons out and asked for lots of ‘stuff’, without limit and without challenge. And now is the time that the limit appears, and thus the challenge has to come, backed with decent analysis.
From what I can make out of the report, it firmly backs the sensible elements of the Midland Rail hub proposals, the Transpennine upgrade (with electrification Manchester to York), and HS2 into Manchester. It also makes it clear that a major upgrade including new Liverpool - Manchester - Leeds is worthwhile, along with various other upgrades around the region. There is clearly potential to do some ‘pick and mix’ to some extent.
I quite like the idea of HS2 to, lets say, Kegworth. The two bits of HS2 that didn’t sit comfortably with me were the Toton Parkway and how it dealt with Sheffield. The former because it was a compromise that didn’t really suit any of the East Mids, except for those with property in the immediate vicinity and those who were willing to drive to Toton on their way out of the region. This proposal puts central Nottingham about an hour from London and half that from Birmingham. A definite improvement over Toton in my view, both in terms of journey time and attractiveness to inbound passengers (and, in my view, the ability to relieve the MML).
The ECML upgrade suggestion is perplexing. From the journey times it seems to suggests that most of the gain is north of Doncaster. As noted above the existing Newcastle journey times quoted are wrong, very - the best ‘clean’ time is 2h46 I think. Digging out the BR archives (British Rail, or Bald Rick, you decide
) I find that going to 140mph on the ECML was only possible on certain sections, and some of those needed major civils to make it so (notably Huntingdon to Peterborough). Even then, at best there is 4 minutes saving south of Doncaster and another 2 1/2 mins from Doncaster to Darlington. There’s another 5 minutes if you don’t stop the fastest trains at Darlington (which has by far the best business case, sorry
@DarloRich). Then a couple more for better acceleration of the Azumas compared to the current timings, and a half minute from the new Kings Cross. Then you could just squeak under 2h30. So the 2h25 suggested seems a stretch, unless something is done with the Engineering allowances, removing the York call, or dare I say, ATO.
The Transpennine proposals make it clear what the direction of travel is there, so no need to have my tuppence worth there. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see what Yorkshire thinks about serving Bradford.
Final point - to any political leaders from the North and Midlands reading. This looks like the start of a process for enabling you to decide which toys you want from the toy shop for your Christmas list. You can’t have them all. If you can’t decide, your Parents will decide for you, and please don’t blame them if you’re disappointed.
we're currently in a world where there is effectively negative interest on borrowing, so now is actually the time to properly commit to infrastructure projects rather than playing regions off against one another.
We might be in a world of low interest rates now, but it won’t last forever. And then those debts will attract higher interest, which we may not be able to pay back.
