HS2 should stop at more stations in the Chilterns

[MatthewHutton]

Plus even with an ECML paralleling high speed line, something would still need to serve Sheffield and the East Midlands

You can cover those with two services an hour into HS2 or you can serve them similarly into the east coast high speed line.

 

[Krokodil]

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?

St Pancras (domestic) doesn't have long-distance trains. At least not as long as Euston or King's Cross. Euston has 52 minutes to turn its longest-distance services (Scotland-Birmingham-London) around. Kings Cross does turn most trains around in roughly 40 minutes.

 

[MatthewHutton]

St Pancras (domestic) doesn't have long-distance trains. At least not as long as Euston or King's Cross. Euston has 52 minutes to turn its longest-distance services (Scotland-Birmingham-London) around. Kings Cross does turn most trains around in roughly 40 minutes.

So with three platforms for the commuter service of 4 trains an hour off peak that would leave 8 platforms for long distance and therefore 12 services an hour. That is enough to fill a high speed line and provide reasonable service to Leeds (3tph), Edinburgh (3tph), Sheffield (2tph), Bradford (1tph), Hull (1pth), Lincoln (1pth) and Sunderland (1tph). And yes maybe you have to tighten operations slightly, it’s hardly Tokyo.

 

[Krokodil]

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..

You said "£100bn spent". £100bn has not been spent, and may yet not be spent if the final cost comes in anywhere but the top end of the range given.

No. It didn't.

Yes. It did.

One tunnel

You think that was the only mitigation? There was a long list of measures, down to HS2 paying to insulate a church.

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

The poster who responded pointed out that it is meaningless for comparison.

 

[MatthewHutton]

HS2 paying to insulate a church

The French did stuff like that too. It costs peanuts.

 

[Krokodil]

The French did stuff like that too. It costs peanuts.

It all adds up. What was it a minister said after a meeting? Something like "you've just cost me another few hundred million".

Quite apart from the other costs the various councils in the Chilterns caused by needlessly delaying planning approval.

 

[fishwomp]

You said "£100bn spent". £100bn has not been spent, and may yet not be spent if the final cost comes in anywhere but the top end of the range given.

No, it hasn't been spent but we know it will be. Would you feel happier if I said £80b _will_ be spent instead? It doesn't change the picture one bit!!!

If it's fair to proclaim the projected economic benefit, then it's fair to use the projected cost. After all, right now, the BCR is 0. Absolutely no benefit, all cost. When it opens there will be a BCR > 0..

Yes. It did.

Pantomime season? Oh no it didn't. You said the people of the Chilterns were responsible.

You think that was the only mitigation? There was a long list of measures, down to HS2 paying to insulate a church.

Anything bigger than a tunnel?

 

[Krokodil]

You said the people of the Chilterns were responsible.

They and their representatives, yes.

Anything bigger than a tunnel?

No individual item that large. A large number of smaller ones however.

 

[London Trains]

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.

If they charge a relatively cheap fare along the lines of the current LNR only fare (and forget this advance fare and seat reservations nonsense, Euston to Birmingham on HS2 should be seen as a metro service with only flexible tickets (off-peak and peak) available, considering how short of a journey it will be, and the fact it will be a turn up and go service), those trains will absolutely be well-loaded after the service has bedded in - Euston to Birmingham, a service between the two biggest cities in the UK, won't take much longer than travelling into London from quite a few Zone 5/6 stations does now.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Quite apart from the other costs the various councils in the Chilterns caused by needlessly delaying planning approval.

which is politically possible only because the project is quite so unpopular.

If they charge a relatively cheap fare along the lines of the current LNR only fare (and forget this advance fare and seat reservations nonsense, Euston to Birmingham on HS2 should be seen as a metro service with only flexible tickets (off-peak and peak) available, considering how short of a journey it will be, and the fact it will be a turn up and go service), those trains will absolutely be well-loaded after the service has bedded in - Euston to Birmingham, a service between the two biggest cities in the UK, won't take much longer than travelling into London from quite a few Zone 5/6 stations does now.

Plus the time to get from your house to the train station. So it’s not going to have the passenger loading of the tube.

It all adds up

The French do this and still hit a budget of £60m/mile.

 

[Bald Rick]

We are literally arguing about slowing services down by 5 minutes with one extra stop.

7 minutes.

 

[MatthewHutton]

7 minutes.

7 minutes assumes you need a two minute dwell and can’t have it as a “brief stop” 1 minute dwell and that you can’t get the drivers to accelerate/decelerate at the rate the Shinkansen does.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

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

Also the viaduct and part of the tunnel cost is about speed and not appeasing the chilterns. Without the speed you’d build it along the existing chiltern mainline instead of the viaduct. The issue is it isn’t flat enough.

Some but not all of the tunnelling cost is similar - or that the speed would lead to an unacceptable visual impact because you aren’t able to follow the land like LGV Sud Est did.

 

[mike57]

I know there are a lot of comparisions with the situation in France, and SNCF, but fundemantal needs and geography are very different.

The distance between major population centres in France is much greater, and the bits in between are much more sparsely populated. Its very noticable when leaving Paris for example, suburban sprawl suddendly becomes farms and fields. SNCF TGVs are 'proper' intercity services for the most part, with 1-2 hours between stops on many routes. Service frequency is lower, but services offer a capacity we can only dream of in the UK, with major routes being potentially a double unit of double decker TGV. Because stops are infrequent station stops tend to be longer, as passengers board and exit.

The particular situation with Haute-Picardy is strange. Its in the middle of nowhere, but was intended I believe to serve Amiens via a dedicated connecting bus service. When I was planning travel to view the 1999 eclipse that was one option that cropped up. In the end I ended up in Amiens but by a different route. I have stopped at Haute Picardy once more recently, and it certainly wasn't well used.

I find the general push to keeping adding stops to long distance services in the UK to be odd. I realise people want connectivity, but ultimately it impacts journey time and passenger comfort, a 3 hour journey on train that stops every 15-20 minutes feels much longer than the same journey with maybe just one stop.

So I think building HS2 as first stop Birmingham when the original Y route was on the table was the right decision, as to route and cost, thats a different story, and now the northern legs are effectively cancelled I can see that possibly adding some connectivity into the middle might be a good idea for a project which to my mind is now teetering on the edge of 'white elephant' territory also owing to its failure to reach Euston in a timely manner.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I find the general push to keeping adding stops to long distance services in the UK to be odd

Only because you don’t have to deal with the disruption caused by HS2

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

The distance between major population centres in France is much greater, and the bits in between are much more sparsely populated

All arguments in favour of higher speed and fewer stops in France.

 

[Zomboid]

The purpose of HS2 is to improve capacity on the existing network by using a new line to take the fast trains away.

Shinkansen lines generally replace the existing very slow narrow gauge network, and LGVs are about going faster between France's widely spaced cities.

They're not really comparable in terms of what they're trying to achieve.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The one basis on which I'd agree with this is that I think not having an M25 Parkway (I think it would be around Handy Cross if I recall?) was a serious mistake. Most people don't live in city centres, so having to travel into London to go to Manchester (or traipse across Birmingham having taken a slow Chiltern train there) will seriously dissuade many from using it. 2B has this for suburban Mancunians in the form of the airport station which would replace Stockport's Parkway role, but yet there isn't one for the London area (OOC isn't really that).

That is probably the only stop I would add however, and I would have all trains stop there, and look to build good coach networks around it too.

 

[NCT]

You were only going to have one secondary London stop. Between OOC and an M25 Parkway, OOC was clearly the superior choice.

 

[Zomboid]

You were only going to have one secondary London stop. Between OOC and an M25 Parkway, OOC was clearly the superior choice.

Perhaps a parkway station on the Chiltern line with frequent reasonably fast services to OOC would do a job here.

Though actually the A40 from the M25 all the way in the OOC is dual carriageway, so would parking provision at OOC itself serve that purpose at all?

 

[Bletchleyite]

You were only going to have one secondary London stop. Between OOC and an M25 Parkway, OOC was clearly the superior choice.

I see no reason why this has to be the case and why there could not have been two. Not having an M25 Parkway will limit appeal to those who live in the Home Counties, despite analogous stops existing on the 2A plan and in Birmingham.

 

[The Planner]

7 minutes assumes you need a two minute dwell and can’t have it as a “brief stop” 1 minute dwell and that you can’t get the drivers to accelerate/decelerate at the rate the Shinkansen does.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

We can't do 30 second stops properly on normal lines, you are not doing a stop like that in less than 2.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Perhaps a parkway station on the Chiltern line with frequent reasonably fast services to OOC would do a job here.

It's still a double back and an extra change which will certainly result in the Range Rover brigade (the people willing to pay very high fares) just driving all the way. It's a very poor choice not to have this.

Though actually the A40 from the M25 all the way in the OOC is dual carriageway, so would parking provision at OOC itself serve that purpose at all?

It'd help but it wouldn't be anywhere near as good. OOC is necessary but so is M25 Parkway.

Remember it's about capacity and connectivity. Not doing this is sticking to the high speed myth.

 

[NCT]

We should be encouraging access trips by sustainable transport. If we can't do it in London and the Home Counties we might as well all go home.

In any case an M25 Parkway would only benefit a small number of passengers, and those in the right quarter all have fast trains into Euston or OOC (or very close to).
- All WCML stations have fast trains to Euston
- MML and ECML have Thameslink, where from St Pancras it's a short walk to Euston via Phoenix Street
- GWML stations have fast trains to OOC
- From Windsor Line it's one change at Richmond for the Mildmay Line, and there'll be the West London Orbital
- From SWML there'll be CR2.

There's no compelling case for an M25 Parkway.

An M25 Parkway already exists - it's called Watford Junction (which after HS2 all long-distance services should call at).

 

[Zomboid]

It's still a double back and an extra change which will certainly result in the Range Rover brigade (the people willing to pay very high fares) just driving all the way. It's a very poor choice not to have this.



It'd help but it wouldn't be anywhere near as good. OOC is necessary but so is M25 Parkway.

Remember it's about capacity and connectivity. Not doing this is sticking to the high speed myth.

Having just said that the Shinkansen isn't a good analogy, and Tokyo/ Yokohama is out of London's league as metropolises go, it is true I believe that everything stops at Ueno and Omiya heading north, and Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama heading west. So a couple of stops before getting fully up to speed isn't absurd. (This is why a stop in the middle would be much harder to fit in, especially if not all trains call - the 300-0-300 penalty would be much greater than a 160-0-160 penalty)

I don't entirely disagree that an M25 parkway would have been a sensible inclusion. Though at the M25/ HS2 intersection there are the Chiltern tunnel portals and Colne Valley viaduct in quick succession, so quite where you'd build it I don't know.

 

[JamesT]

We should be encouraging access trips by sustainable transport. If we can't do it in London and the Home Counties we might as well all go home.

In any case an M25 Parkway would only benefit a small number of passengers, and those in the right quarter all have fast trains into Euston or OOC (or very close to).
- All WCML stations have fast trains to Euston
- MML and ECML have Thameslink, where from St Pancras it's a short walk to Euston via Phoenix Street
- GWML stations have fast trains to OOC
- From Windsor Line it's one change at Richmond for the Mildmay Line, and there'll be the West London Orbital
- From SWML there'll be CR2.

There's no compelling case for an M25 Parkway.

An M25 Parkway already exists - it's called Watford Junction (which after HS2 all long-distance services should call at).

And for those on the Chiltern line, move forward with the proposal to build a terminus at Old Oak Common.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In any case an M25 Parkway would only benefit a small number of passengers, and those in the right quarter all have fast trains into Euston or OOC (or very close to).

I think you're overstating peoples' willingness to change. People largely are not willing to change, and HS2 will not, er, change that.

In particular a LOT of people will not make any train journey requiring travel via London.

 

[Peter Sarf]

HS2 was intended as a by-pass for the West Coast Mainline. It is not logical to clutter a road by pass with junctions in the same way it is not logical to clutter a high speed line with stations.

If HS2 were to have more intermediate statons its route would have been chosen differently, it would go near the larger towns - probably following more closely the larger towns on the West Coast Mainline.

HS2 was not intended as a way of getting the Chilterns filled up with housing developments.

HS2 was intended as a way of improving major city centre to major city centre centre journey times AND at the same time releasing capacity on the existing West Coast Mainline where there are intermediate stations for many fairly large towns that exist already.

HS2 is also expected to allow more freight to run on the WCML - and that will ease traffic on the M1 but just as much on the M40 (longer distance lorry movements). The reduction in traffic on the M1 and M40 will allow more cars that currently use nearby roads to use the M1 or M40 where possible.

Have to look at the whole picture to see the benefits of HS2 and how the knock on effects work out.

Adding intermediate stations would no doubt add traffic to areas near HS2, housing development is bound to follow. So that would then be a larger, and long term, impact on the areas near HS2 than just the disruption while HS2 is being built.

 

[NCT]

I think you're overstating peoples' willingness to change. People largely are not willing to change, and HS2 will not, er, change that.

In particular a LOT of people will not make any train journey requiring travel via London.

HS2 doesn't need to change that. HS2's business case is made on evolution of existing travel patterns.

Motorway network congestion serves as a natural cap on the appeal of driving.

As a country we spend far too much of money we don't have on carrots. For us to be long-term economically sustaintable we need to be much more politically accepting of sticks.

 

[Bletchleyite]

HS2 was not intended as a way of getting the Chilterns filled up with housing developments.

These already exist, and their residents will go to Manchester etc by car as a result of the lack of a suitable HS2 station. And that car has a high chance of being a highly polluting Range Rover (though to be fair also just as likely to be a Tesla).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

HS2 doesn't need to change that. HS2's business case is made on evolution of existing travel patterns.

Which is an artificial limitation. It should also look to grow and take on board new ones.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2026 ==

As a country we spend far too much of money we don't have on carrots. For us to be long-term economically sustaintable we need to be much more politically accepting of sticks.

Disagree. Countries that do well with sustainable transport do well mostly with carrots, e.g. Italy's superb high speed network, the Netherlands' universal cycle provision or Germany's well connected cities.

 

[stevieinselby]

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

TGV would disagree. Most trains running from Paris to Bordeaux don't stop in between – a few call at Massy (analogous to Old Oak Common) or Angouleme (450km). Most trains to Lyon are non-stop with a few calling at Le Creusot (300km). Even on shorter routes like Nantes, the first stop is usually at the earliest Le Mans (200km)

The “people with valid concerns” also oppose HS2

When at a low-ball estimate 95% of people who say they have valid concerns about HS2 either don't understand the first damn thing about it or believe that their personal hobbyhorse or grudge should be the overriding factor in deciding national transport policy, it makes it very hard to identify any actual valid concerns.

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?

Because the Daily Mail and the Telegraph would have told them not to be happy about it.

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.

Building a second high speed line into London and a second new high speed terminal along the Euston Road corridor would not have been cheaper than anything apart from possibly going via the moon. It would either have had to be entirely in tunnel for the entirety of the route out of London or would have wreaked far more damage on residential areas that are orders of magnitude more densely populated than Aylesbury and the Chilterns – although perhaps by people who don't have the same political clout, and who some might be happier to ride roughshod over...

 

[swt_passenger]

I thought the green tunnels would be done right at the end?

Not so. If ‘Green tunnel’ is a tunnel that was optional for hiding the railway, rather than necessary because of an obstacle, then there‘s quite a few that are nearly complete. Harefield was reported complete a while back, Greatworth is nearly complete. (That doesn’t include track etc, or ventilation being operational.)