HS2 should stop at more stations in the Chilterns

[Farigiraf]

Every other high speed line in the world would call at such a large place that far from the previous stop.

Every other high speed line isn't trying to fit the majority of north-south intercity rail onto one line into the capital. If HS2 was just meant for the WCML, with separate high-speed lines from London to Yorkshire and the East Midlands, then with the 18tph limit one stop around Brackley/Aylesbury may make sense. But at the moment we're struggling to open one part of one line, let alone multiple. Simply diverting all the current electric Avanti services onto HS2 already gets you to near max capacity, there's no opportunity to start thinking of building a regional station in the Chilterns even if it were designed as an EWR/Chiltern Railways interchange and not just a 'beetroot station'.

Though I'd argue that appeasing NIMBYs isn't the reason you'd build a station in the Chilterns anyway. Brackley doesn't have any decent public transport connection, and even if the EWR spur were built, Aylesbury's links northwards would still be quite bad. A stop on a mostly full already line that carries some of the longest distance rail traffic in the country isn't the solution to either of these problems though. NIMBYs will always NIMBY, that's why there's a term for it and they're not known as 'people with valid concerns'.

 

[NCT]

NIMBYs will always NIMBY, that's why there's a term for it and they're not known as 'people with valid concerns'.

Hear hear.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Every other high speed line isn't trying to fit the majority of north-south intercity rail onto one line into the capital.

Which was a highly flawed decision. A second line gets you a lot more than 1.5 extra paths.

Brackley doesn't have any decent public transport

If Haute Picarde had direct Paris service every 2 hours it’s pretty reasonable to assume it’d get 600k passengers a year total up from its current 300k. And Brackley is a real place and the area around it has a much higher population density so you’d easily be looking at a million passengers a year or so just for a stop there.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Simply diverting all the current electric Avanti services onto HS2 already gets you to max capacity

There are not 18 current electric Avanti services an hour.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

NIMBYs will always NIMBY, that's why there's a term for it and they're not known as 'people with valid concerns'.

The “people with valid concerns” also oppose HS2

 

[eldomtom2]

The Chuo Shinkansen was delayed because one of the provinces didn’t get a stop - even though the part of the province the line goes through is literally uninhabited.

The official line from Shizuoka Prefecture, the prefecture in question, was that they were concerned with tunnel construction creating water leaks that would lower the water level. Many political analysts believed that the real reason was that Shizuoka Prefecture wanted a station serving Shizuoka Airport on the Tokaido Shinkansen. There was never any suggestion from the prefecture that the Chuo Shinkansen should stop in it.
That said, there are definitely planned stations on the Chuo Shinkansen that can hardly be said to serve major urban areas, such as the planned one in Nakatsugawa.

 

[renegademaster]

Considering how much Kier Starmer opposed it back when his main job was a local MP for the constituency who will see the most trains per hour, I don't think some occasional stops will stop Home County nimbys.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Considering how much Kier Starmer opposed it back when his main job was a local MP for the constituency who will see the most trains per hour, I don't think some occasional stops will stop Home County nimbys.

Maybe, just maybe, Keir Starmer isn’t very good at politics .

There is a small amount of evidence for this.

And why wouldn’t the Home Counties residents have been happy with stops when literally everyone else in other countries with high speed rail was happy enough with them?

 

[Meole]

Perhaps commuter trains from the Chilterns rather than stoppers from Brum should have been planned.

 

[SynthD]

I hope the other threads on this question were illuminating.

The plan is for no HS2 stops in that section and for the fast services on the WCML to stop at the existing stations like Milton Keynes and Coventry. Like the slow and fast lines are different from each other, HS2 should be different to the fast lines. How does your plan accomplish this?

 

[MatthewHutton]

The plan is for no HS2 stops in that section and for the fast services on the WCML to stop at the existing stations like Milton Keynes and Coventry. Like the slow and fast lines are different from each other, HS2 should be different to the fast lines. How does your plan accomplish this?

Having some stops for the people affected by the construction still leaves the HS2 service faster than that on the classic line and it still leaves massively increased capacity of the rail network. We are literally arguing about slowing services down by 5 minutes with one extra stop.

If it was 2 hourly in the other hour you do stops north of Birmingham.

You also increase passenger numbers which is good.

 

[Farigiraf]

If Haute Picarde had direct Paris service every 2 hours it’s pretty reasonable to assume it’d get 600k passengers a year total up from its current 300k. And Brackley is a real place and the area around it has a much higher population density so you’d easily be looking at a million passengers a year or so just for a stop there.

Which long distance service would you not run on HS2 to make capacity for a Brackley stop every hour (because a stop every 2 hours is not worth the construction costs)? High speed trains slowing down use up a lot of capacity, even if you built the station platforms on a loop line. So of the original 18tph, which has dropped to around 16tph due to the recent speed drop, you'd likely lose space for another 1-2 trains. What's getting the cut?

There are not 18 current electric Avanti services an hour.

- 4 Birmingham shuttles
- 3 or 4 Manchesters
- 2 Liverpools
- 2 Scotland/Prestons
That's 12.
Add on the eastern leg and you very quickly reach 18.

The “people with valid concerns” also oppose HS2

Opposing HS2 isn't a valid concern though, it's objectively the best realistic way of freeing capacity on the WCML. Such concerns as 'but getting to London from brackley is still a hassle' or '20 years of construction noise outside my house isn't pleasant' are valid - but none of these require full cancellation.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Add on the eastern leg and you very quickly reach 18

It would be much cheaper and have much higher benefits both in terms of levelling up and in terms of speeding up London-Edinburgh to build a dedicated TGV style line on the east that terminated at King’s Cross. With a rationalisation of the rolling stock there you easily have capacity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

- 4 Birmingham shuttles

Where are the passengers going to come from to fill these? I can see 10m from new street with 3x growth and maybe 5m from International. Three trains an hour would have a third of the seats free assuming only 600 seats per train. Assuming 400m trains and you’re going to be carting round a lot of fresh air.

 

[Krokodil]

Having some stops for the people affected by the construction...

Just how much are we expected to bribe them in total? They've already had a long list of mitigations - reasonable and otherwise. You seem to expect that Bucks CC would have behaved pragmatically if an Aylesbury HS2 station was built but I see no reason that they would have changed their tune.

 

[SynthD]

Having some stops for the people affected by the construction

Does not please them. They’re drivers. There was a thread several months ago that went deeper into this idea of buying off people with train stations that they don’t use (edit: same OP https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/should-there-be-more-stations-on-hs2.296048/). It’s out of place if we are caring about spending wisely.

You also increase passenger numbers which is good.

Go north, life is peaceful there. (And the original high bcr intent of the line.)

 

[MatthewHutton]

(because a stop every 2 hours is not worth the construction costs)

1 million passengers a year is like 1/50th of the total for the whole of HS2. A basic station at Brackley wouldn’t cost £2bn. £200m would get you four platforms etc.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Does not please them. They’re drivers

The Parkway stations in both France and the UK do very respectably.

 

[Transilien]

It would be much cheaper and have much higher benefits both in terms of levelling up and in terms of speeding up London-Edinburgh to build a dedicated TGV style line on the east that terminated at King’s Cross. With a rationalisation of the rolling stock there you easily have capacity.

The East Coast Mainline already has a very flat and straight alignment, perhaps a HSL could be created simply through segregating the fasts from the slow lines completely, getting rid of level crossings and building a few new bypasses for sections that could never do 300km/h.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Just how much are we expected to bribe them in total? They've already had a long list of mitigations - reasonable and otherwise. You seem to expect that Bucks CC would have behaved pragmatically if an Aylesbury HS2 station was built but I see no reason that they would have changed their tune.

Well it would mean theyd benefit from the project. So why wouldn’t they change their tune?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

The East Coast Mainline already has a very flat and straight alignment, perhaps a HSL could be created simply through segregating the fasts from the slow lines completely, getting rid of level crossings and building a few new bypasses for sections that could never do 300km/h.

yes, so you could do it piecemeal which is good.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Go north, life is peaceful there. (And the original high bcr intent of the line.)

Additional stops also give you more passengers north of Birmingham as well.

 

[growse]

So why wouldn’t they change their tune?

Because they're not acting rationally. NIMBYs are fundamentalists.

Appeasing fundamentalists is futile.

 

[MatthewHutton]

So of the original 18tph, which has dropped to around 16tph due to the recent speed drop

Slower speeds give you more capacity not less as you can run the trains closer together.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Because they're not acting rationally. NIMBYs are fundamentalists.

Appeasing fundamentalists is futile.

You can’t say everyone who lives along the route is a fundamentalist.

 

[growse]

You can’t say everyone who lives along the route is a fundamentalist.

Not everybody living along the route opposes it.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Not everybody living along the route opposes it.

They pretty much do. Certainly in the south where there are no benefits.

 

[growse]

They pretty much do. Certainly in the south where there are no benefits.

You mean the wealthy bits who have a historical habit of opposing any development whatsoever? The opposed the M40 with it's myriad of local junctions too.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

They pretty much do.

Speculation not Bourne out by the data I'm afraid. Easy to confuse a vocal minority with a vast strength of feeling though.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Speculation not Bourne out by the data I'm afraid. Easy to confuse a vocal minority with a vast strength of feeling though.

Has someone polled the people of Buckinghamshire on this?

 

[Farigiraf]

It would be much cheaper and have much higher benefits both in terms of levelling up and in terms of speeding up London-Edinburgh to build a dedicated TGV style line on the east that terminated at King’s Cross.

I'd love to see that, but cheaper? Really?

Last thing I'd associate with an ECML HSL is cheap. If you think the Chiltern NIMBYs are bad, of which there are few because it's a sparsely populated area, wait till you see the Hertfordshire NIMBYs.
Plus even with an ECML paralleling high speed line, something would still need to serve Sheffield and the East Midlands. Journey times aren't too high from these places to London, but the MML isn't exactly overflowing with capacity.

1 million passengers a year is like 1/50th of the total for the whole of HS2. A basic station at Brackley wouldn’t cost £2bn. £200m would get you four platforms etc.

HSRs are a sunk cost. You can't alter them easily years on. So any station in the Chilterns (in a world where one makes sense) would have to actually make an attempt at providing a decent variety of connections instead of just being a Haute-Picardie style parkway station. Not the best use of resources to spend upwards of £200m for roughly the annual usage of Croxley tube station.

Where are the passengers going to come from to fill these? I can see 10m from new street with 3x growth and maybe 5m from International. Three trains an hour would have a third of the seats free assuming only 600 seats per train. Assuming 400m trains and you’re going to be carting round a lot of fresh air.

That's HS2's plan, not mine. But keep in mind HS2 is meant to last for 100 years. Given the growth of Birmingham, I can easily see those free seats filling up within a few decades.

 

[growse]

Has someone polled the people of Buckinghamshire on this?

Perhaps! None of them say that "... Pretty much everybody is opposed" though.

I'd love to see that, but cheaper? Really?

The thing that's hilarious about this is that KGX is basically full.

 

[MatthewHutton]

HSRs are a sunk cost. You can't alter them easily years on. So any station in the Chilterns (in a world where one makes sense) would have to actually make an attempt at providing a decent variety of connections instead of just being a Haute-Picardie style parkway station. Not the best use of resources to spend upwards of £200m for roughly the annual usage of Croxley tube station.

so it’d be at least 10x better value than HS2 as a whole and that isn’t enough? Also extra stations have been added after construction on the Tokaido and Taiwan HSR lines.

The thing that's hilarious about this is that KGX is basically full.

only because there’s 47 different kinds of rolling stock. With one kind of rolling stock and running the same service level as the platforms next door at St Pancras and there’s tonnes of capacity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Perhaps! None of them say that "... Pretty much everybody is opposed" though.

So my ancedotal knowledge vs your?

 

[growse]

only because there’s 47 different kinds of rolling stock.

There isn't.

With one kind of rolling stock and running the same service level as the platforms next door at St Pancras and there’s tonnes of capaci

Once again, wild speculation not actually supported by any meaningful data. I know this is the speculation forum, but this is about as laughable as the idea that we could also free up capacity by reopening (and quadrupling) the York road tunnels and terminating some HSR at moorgate.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Given the growth of Birmingham, I can easily see those free seats filling up within a few decades.

Is that before or after the Brexit benefits?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 May 2026 ==

Once again, wild speculation not actually supported by any meaningful data.

So if St Pancras can handle turning a long distance train around in an average of 40 minutes per platform and Euston can do it in less why can’t Kings Cross?

 

[Uncle Buck]

This is a solution in search of, if not a problem, then a different problem to the one to which it is being offered!

Many in the Chilterns oppose HS2 for understandable reasons. Some boondoggle parkway station is not going to change that, especially when this rural area has a decent service to Marylebone. All that will be achieved is yet more money spent and a detrimental effect on HS2 services. What is the point in building a new line to increase capacity and speed if the trains have to stop at a car park in the middle of the countryside?

Once HS2 has scooped the fastest services between the big cities off the conventional network, then is the time to expand the conventional network with parkway stations etc.

 

[MatthewHutton]

If you think the Chiltern NIMBYs are bad, of which there are few because it's a sparsely populated area

I’m not sure the population density is much different?

 

[fishwomp]

[.]
£100bn has not been spent. The nominal cost may reach £100bn, but the money hasn't actually been spent yet and it may never reach it. There is also no consideration of inflation. £100bn in today's prices is something like £80bn in 2019 prices.

What matters is what it costs in today's money. If you go to the shops, you don't ask what something cost 7 years ago. You can say "it was supposed to be £32bn in 2011", and "it was supposed to be £44bn in 2020" and then adjust those for inflation (£47bn and £57bn respectively in 2026) - but it's still £100bn today..

Firstly I repeat the point that the people of the Chilterns have been responsible both for the increase in costs, and for the consequent reduction in benefits.

No. It didn't. Two wrongs don't make a right - specifically, repeating the same wrong doesn't make it right.

One tunnel. How much did that cost? Did that really take a £32bn in 2011, a 44bn in 2020 project to £100bn? Nope. Inflation has a lot to answer for, but so has incompetence and dithering.

Let me check that tunnel... oh, here it is: https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/winners-named-for-66bn-of-hs2-contracts

C1: Chiltern Twin Tunnels (15.8km long) and Colne Valley Viaduct (3.4km) – Align JV (Bouygues Travaux Publics, VolkerFitzpatrick, Sir Robert McAlpine) – £965m.

So, yeah, that didn't suddenly make things stupendously expensive..

Have you got a reputable citation for that claim? I can't find it reported by any news outlet, much less an official source.

Has been supplied in someone else's response. It's official