HS2 should stop at more stations in the Chilterns

[Krokodil]

When Lord Berkeley gave HS2 a kicking in 2019 he predicted that it would cost at least £100bn. He was roundly mocked on here for being an idiot who didn’t know what he was talking about. Turns out he was right all along, as we sceptics thought he was at the time.

Did your clairvoyance also predict a global pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Because those were big factors in the cost inflation.

 

[The exile]

Clear means clarity about what’s long distance and what is a local train. It’s unclear how many of the people at Charles de Gaulle airport are using the RER and how many the TGV.

Given the fact that a special fare is payable on the RER to access the airport, the number of those sold should give a good estimate. Whether the authorities will reveal that number is another matter.

 

[stevieinselby]

Why wouldn’t it be economically viable to do an M25 stop if that had been planned from the beginning?

It would only ever have made sense to have one stop outside Euston in the London environs. Having two stops served by all trains would slow them down and would give passengers from Euston the wrong impression, and having two stops served by alternate trains would reduce track capacity. Faced with a choice between a parkway station that would pull even more traffic onto an already overloaded M25 that would be inaccessible to anyone without a car and would need a huge car park, or an interchange station at Old Oak Common for connections onto Crossrail, Overground and other mainline services, it wasn't a difficult choice.

People who live in London and don’t own a car will use the train even if it’s a bad experience.

People in Lichfield who do own a car need to get a good experience to be persuaded to use the train.

London has a population of 8.8m, and 46% of households don't have a car – so a ballpark estimate of 4 million people who don't have access to a car.
Lichfield has a population of 35k – even if all of them have a car, that's still less than 1% of the carless Londonders.
Why would you go to a lot of trouble to make the service more attractive to a tiny number of people, most of whom won't want to use it anyway, when you could focus on the low-hanging fruit that is both far easier to optimise for and far more profitable to optimise for?

 

[35B]

Expertise and competence are seemingly not the same thing.

As I said, a matter of public record. One hopes that their demand modelling is better than their cost estimation.

I can consider what HS2 present based on that track record, and assess accordingly. While I can apply the "like elbows, everyone has an opinion" (other, less family friendly, versions are available) view on posts, I prefer to give an otherwise unknown source the chance to provide a basis for their assertions on numbers.

 

[Farigiraf]

It would be more viable, because the costs would have been built in from the start. But the question is whether people would drive to and then round the M25 to connect with a service, rather than take a shorter, more predictable, journey to a local station. If I'm travelling up one of the arterial road corridors, I either go straight to the train near the start, or I go right in to London. The last place I'd railhead would be the M25, especially if I had to risk running a junction or two on that road.

Indeed. Given the lack of reliable journey times along the M25 (the only guarantee is that there'll be congestion at some point), I don't think combining that with the inevitably Advance-fare based HS2 is a good idea. You'd either have people complaining about having to leave overly early or that they missed the train despite leaving at an adequate time as they encountered some traffic. Naturally, delay repay won't factor in personal travel in your car.

Thinking of where I live, most people I know don't travel much and plenty have never used an intercity train. That's in a town that has ECML commuter traffic. In the hamlet where relatives used to live, most people lived and worked locally, travelling very occasionally. None were distance commuters, and most of those who did use the train did so for specific long planned journeys.

The solution to this in a sustainable transport-focused world is of course to improve local links whether that's by more frequent and reliable buses, or new bits of local railway to ensure nobody's very far from one. Building a parkway that you assume all these small-town travellers will use for long-distance travel is a flawed 20th century perspective. Not least because not everyone drives these days - younger people are driving less and less due to the cost of living etc (and encouraging them to move to cities is a defeatist position) plus there's an aging population.

With very few exceptions (Line 7bis?), the Paris Metro is very close to the surface (and of course above it in some cases) so you can go underneath without going down too far. Underground / Metro tunnels are also not the only things you have to avoid, though Paris will have its fair share of those as well.

Makes sense. This isn't a problem that you can really spend your way out of - I suppose the best strategy is to make London a bit more polycentric in terms of job locations to reduce the need for high commuter flows to one specific location (the City). Canary Wharf's an example of how to do it.

Given the fact that a special fare is payable on the RER to access the airport, the number of those sold should give a good estimate. Whether the authorities will reveal that number is another matter.

Given the low frequency of TGVs round the Interconnexion Est - typically just a few per day from most stations on the LGV Est and Sudest, I don't think CDG receives many long-distance passengers from the TGV. A predictable, frequent timetable and the ability to purchase through-tickets including both a flight and TGV ticket, would improve upon this greatly. The UK equivalent - Manchester Airport HS2 station, would not have this issue, as to serve it you wouldn't need to bypass Manchester Piccadilly, unlike in France where every CDG TGV is one that doesn't serve the more profitable Paris termini.

 

[35B]

It would only ever have made sense to have one stop outside Euston in the London environs. Having two stops served by all trains would slow them down and would give passengers from Euston the wrong impression, and having two stops served by alternate trains would reduce track capacity. Faced with a choice between a parkway station that would pull even more traffic onto an already overloaded M25 that would be inaccessible to anyone without a car and would need a huge car park, or an interchange station at Old Oak Common for connections onto Crossrail, Overground and other mainline services, it wasn't a difficult choice.

London has a population of 8.8m, and 46% of households don't have a car – so a ballpark estimate of 4 million people who don't have access to a car.
Lichfield has a population of 35k – even if all of them have a car, that's still less than 1% of the carless Londonders.
Why would you go to a lot of trouble to make the service more attractive to a tiny number of people, most of whom won't want to use it anyway, when you could focus on the low-hanging fruit that is both far easier to optimise for and far more profitable to optimise for?

I disagree strongly with @MatthewHutton's analysis, but I will concede him one point - a well placed park and ride station may generate significant additional traffic for people railheading. Given how HS2 intersects both A38 and A5 in the Lichfield/Tamworth area, the 35k population of Lichfield could be a significant underestimate of potential demand. However, many other questions would need to be answered first before taking a view on that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 May 2026 ==

The solution to this in a sustainable transport-focused world is of course to improve local links whether that's by more frequent and reliable buses, or new bits of local railway to ensure nobody's very far from one. Building a parkway that you assume all these small-town travellers will use for long-distance travel is a flawed 20th century perspective. Not least because not everyone drives these days - younger people are driving less and less due to the cost of living etc (and encouraging them to move to cities is a defeatist position) plus there's an aging population.

The point here is not about making it easier for them to travel (though that may be desirable for other reasons), but to point out that if people live in rural places, their travel needs may be more limited.

 

[Farigiraf]

I disagree strongly with @MatthewHutton's analysis, but I will concede him one point - a well placed park and ride station may generate significant additional traffic for people railheading. Given how HS2 intersects both A38 and A5 in the Lichfield/Tamworth area, the 35k population of Lichfield could be a significant underestimate of potential demand. However, many other questions would need to be answered first before taking a view on that.

Post-phase 2a at least, the Trent Valley line will have a lot more capacity for locals compared to the current mediocre 1tph. It's a fairly quick journey to London from there, with high-capacity class 730s. This is the exact market that you could tap much better utilising the freed-up capacity on the WCML, without needing to sacrifice a few tph of capacity on HS2 or spending many millions on a HSR station.
A rebuilt Polesworth, with a southern entrance serving the town itself and a northern entrance functioning as a parkway, would be within the catchment area of those Lichfield/Tamworth area travellers who don't feel like using the town centre stations.

The point here is not about making it easier for them to travel (though that may be desirable for other reasons), but to point out that if people live in rural places, their travel needs may be more limited.

That's true as well, though as local town centres are declining and development becomes increasingly focused on cities (due to higher returns) this'll grow.

A lot more people travel from the villages around Cambridge into the city for various reasons including cheaper housing and the decline of local shops/schools/workplaces. One of the solutions to this has been to build these facilities on the edge of town, and while that doesn't make city centre traffic much worse, it still creates more traffic along the narrow, pothole-covered rural roads and of course these places aren't accessible by other modes than driving.
If there were better buses and more local train lines in the area then it'd be a manageable problem but people don't really use Park & Rides (the carrot) enough (as there's no stick) so the best solution is to shift as many people away from driving as possible, wherever possible. This applies on a national level (HS2) as well.

 

[stevieinselby]

I disagree strongly with @MatthewHutton's analysis, but I will concede him one point - a well placed park and ride station may generate significant additional traffic for people railheading. Given how HS2 intersects both A38 and A5 in the Lichfield/Tamworth area, the 35k population of Lichfield could be a significant underestimate of potential demand. However, many other questions would need to be answered first before taking a view on that.

Birmingham Interchange is already planned to fulfil that function for the West Midlands, it doesn't need two parkway stations so close by.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Some of which is because driving is a lot quicker. But that wouldn’t be the case with a nearby HS2 stop.

How many of these nearby HS2 stops will there end up being ?.
Will it make HS2 resemble the West Coast Main Line - cluttered with services stopping everywhere thus reducing capacity for the long distance intercity trains.
How slow will it get ?.
How many people will really use it ?.

You have to avoid individual transport routes trying to do all possible things.
Simplify the West Coast Mainline by taking out most of the long distance intercity trains.
Keep HS2 simple by catering only for those long distance intercity trains.

 

[Palmerston]

Overall, I think Matthew Hutton has a fair case, and I'm sure an extra HS2 station (or several stations) would have plenty of users, but I still don't think it would make sense. The two big issues remain, as others have said, reducing capacity on HS2 and slowing down every other user (there are far more people who will be slowed down than benefit from the new station).

If Aylesbury was much bigger (the size of Stoke, say), or if it was 10 miles further north, and on the actual East-West rail line, then it might become worthwhile, but it isn't, so the connection possibilities are minimal. Aylesbury Vale Parkway only has a bit over 100k passengers. Yes, if the trains to London only took 15-20 minutes I'm sure the numbers would increase, but a lot would just be due to lower numbers at Aylesbury itself.

Having said that, Aylesbury is fairly poorly connected and the existing line should certainly be connected to East-West rail. If it was feasible to extend this to Brackley and Buckingham, on the old line to Banbury, I can see how there would be positives from that, as all three towns could then have connections north and south. The existing route should also be sped up, if possible. That's a slightly separate issue though.

 

[Farnborough]

And quite frankly doing London-Manchester in 1h15 or 1h45 isn’t enormously different anyway. It’s all much faster than driving or taking a plane.

It depends on your start and finish locations...

I will be attending a trade event at one of the Manchester airport hotels in November. Door to door

• Train is 5 hours, two changes (avoiding London), and £150 each way (including buses)
• Plane is 3 hours (LHR-MAN, including allowing for check-in etc), £80 each way (economy, and including buses to/from airport)
• Car is 4 hours drive

 

[William3000]

The approach (bribing locals with token stations) that SNCF told us was a mistake, in retrospect?


£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.

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.


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

The obvious location would be an interchange where HS2 crosses EWR and a new town based around it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 May 2026 ==

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

That’s not true at all - in my experience many are indifferent and many support it but often keep quiet in their communities because they tend to get bullied on social media or personally attacked.

 

[Krokodil]

The obvious location would be an interchange where HS2 crosses EWR and a new town based around it.

I'm sure that the NIMBYs would absolutely love a new town...

 

[Tomos y Tanc]

Every country would have struggled if they built a new piece of infrastructure very slowly and without local benefits through a densely populated region.

It's not just a matter of population density though but the relative wealth of a region. The prosperity of the Chilterns is why so much of the southern end of HS2 is essentially tunnels under fields. Further north, in poorer areas, it would simply have cut through deprived communities at ground level.

It's cake-ism as its worst to oppose a railway in every possible way and then whinge when you don't get a station.

 

[camflyer]

I don’t think that’s true at all.

Every country would have struggled if they built a new piece of infrastructure very slowly and without local benefits through a densely populated region.

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 Chilterns is a densely populated region is it?

 

[BrianW]

The Chilterns is a densely populated region is it?

The Chilterns is densely populated by objectors. A station might however have 'bought them off. HS2 'taking pressure off' other services at Chiltern stations was, to my mind insufficiently communicated- largely due to the fragmented railway and competition 'winning' over collaboration.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The Chilterns is a densely populated region is it?

Much more so than rural France or the areas along the Chuo Shinkansen - and not always far off the Tokaido line in terms of people within a given distance.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

HS2 'taking pressure off' other services at Chiltern stations was, to my mind insufficiently communicated- largely due to the fragmented railway and competition 'winning' over collaboration.

It basically makes no difference to the chilterns.

Basically the only real improvement for the chilterns would be that the 06:14 from Stourbridge junction would be able to start at e.g Moor street and have more carriages.

But also with partial door opening you could solve that basically tomorrow.

And that does only benefit people in the Haddenham and Thame Parkway catchment area.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

It's not just a matter of population density though but the relative wealth of a region. The prosperity of the Chilterns is why so much of the southern end of HS2 is essentially tunnels under fields. Further north, in poorer areas, it would simply have cut through deprived communities at ground level.

It's cake-ism as its worst to oppose a railway in every possible way and then whinge when you don't get a station.

If HS2 had genuinely offered a station to the chilterns instead of such a long tunnel why isn’t there a station at Kenilworth, Lichfield and Stone Staffordshire? Because all of those places deserve a station at least as much if not more.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

I'm sure that the NIMBYs would absolutely love a new town...

The BANANAs wouldn’t. Most people would be quite happy with a new town that would get good infrastructure and would mean fewer homes would be built elsewhere in their county.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

Plane is 3 hours (LHR-MAN, including allowing for check-in etc), £80 each way (economy, and including buses to/from airport)

Not sure where exactly you are going to/from where that’s the case including time to get to Heathrow.

And if you can get to Heathrow in 15/20 minutes or whatever to achieve those times you can get to Old Oak Common in under an hour so with HS2 taking 90 minutes from there would give you an overall trip time of 2.5 hours.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jun 2026 ==

Having two stops served by all trains would slow them down and would give passengers from Euston the wrong impression,

The Shinkansen has two stops in the Tokyo area after Tokyo terminal in both directions.

 

[renegademaster]

The BANANAs wouldn’t. Most people would be quite happy with a new town that would get good infrastructure and would mean fewer homes would be built elsewhere in their county.

Do they? Look at the battle Epping is having over its own new town

 

[MatthewHutton]

Do they? Look at the battle Epping is having over its own new town

What’s the argument against the Epping new town?

 

[renegademaster]

What’s the argument against the Epping new town?

The council, with the support from their residents, having been blocking it , and now the government took over planning control from them to force it through

 

[MatthewHutton]

The council, with the support from their residents, having been blocking it , and now the government took over planning control from them to force it through

What’s the reason?

 

[Sorcerer]

The BANANAs wouldn’t. Most people would be quite happy with a new town that would get good infrastructure and would mean fewer homes would be built elsewhere in their county.

NIMBYs by their very definition wouldn't want to see a new town in their area. They might support it elsewhere just like they may support new rail development, just not where they are, which is pretty much the only that separates them from BANANAs. I seriously doubt HS2 having one or two intermediate stations in their area would've brought them around to the idea of it going through their area.

 

[MatthewHutton]

NIMBYs by their very definition wouldn't want to see a new town in their area. They might support it elsewhere just like they may support new rail development, just not where they are, which is pretty much the only that separates them from BANANAs. I seriously doubt HS2 having one or two intermediate stations in their area would've brought them around to the idea of it going through their area.

Why? Given that worked in literally every other country that did high speed rail through a populated area?

 

[Sorcerer]

Why? Given that worked in literally every other country that did high speed rail through a populated area?

Because the issue was never about getting a station, it was about not wanting a rail line through their area, otherwise the campaigns would've been more "Station For Aylesbury" and less "Stop HS2". The protests are about stopping the line, not building more of it, and I'd be very interested to know what makes you think it worked in literally every other country.

Stations built in rural areas are almost always about appeasing the local politicians regardless of how practical it is, and I think people arguing in favour of rural areas getting a HS2 stop are missing the point. The line was never meant to serve the Chilterns directly, it was supposed to serve big urban centres so the classic lines could focus on improved local services rather than trying to mix intercity and local traffic on a single railway.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Because the issue was never about getting a station, it was about not wanting a rail line through their area, otherwise the campaigns would've been more "Station For Aylesbury" and less "Stop HS2". The protests are about stopping the line, not building more of it, and I'd be very interested to know what makes you think it worked in literally every other country.

Stations built in rural areas are almost always about appeasing the local politicians regardless of how practical it is, and I think people arguing in favour of rural areas getting a HS2 stop are missing the point. The line was never meant to serve the Chilterns directly, it was supposed to serve big urban centres so the classic lines could focus on improved local services rather than trying to mix intercity and local traffic on a single railway.

Why do you think the people of the Chilterns wouldn’t want the rail line going through their area if there were actually benefits to the project rather than the current position with HS2 where it’s all pain and no gain?

Given stations in the countryside don’t really legitimately shoulder any of the main construction/running costs of the alignment - stations in rural areas on high speed lines are mostly extremely profitable, probably more so than those in the cities.

 

[SynthD]

HS2 'taking pressure off' other services at Chiltern stations was, to my mind insufficiently communicated

HS2 as is, without extra stations, would help Moor St and Warwick Parkway passengers, and would justify fewer fast trains benefitting those stations. But saying there will be fewer fast services is risky.

Given stations in the countryside don’t really legitimately shoulder any of the main construction/running costs of the alignment - stations in rural areas on high speed lines are mostly extremely profitable, probably more so than those in the cities.

Can you expand on that? Any examples to cite that we can adjust for HS2 prices and Chiltern population density?

 

[MatthewHutton]

Can you expand on that? Any examples to cite that we can adjust for HS2 prices and Chiltern population density?

So the cost of a station in the chilterns (or anywhere else) in terms of construction is the literal cost of the station plus the points and passing track at the platforms or platform barriers. Also obviously any parking, road access etc.

Everything else has to be shouldered by the big cities because that’s why the line was built in the first place.

In terms of running costs it’s the same. It’s the cost of running the station, the marginal cost of slowing the stopping services down to stop, the points maintenance etc.

In terms of ridership it’s difficult to judge because I don’t have access to the modelling (and I’m not sure it’s very good) but given Haddenham and Thame Parkway gets 900k passengers a year then getting maybe 1.5 million would be a reasonable but conservative estimate. That compares pretty favourably with Birmingham Curzon Street even if it got 15 million passengers a year because Curzon Street has to shoulder a much larger percentage of the costs.

In terms of live railways if you take a weak station like Shin Fuji on the Tokaido Shinkansen it has around 1% of boardings and around 2% of passengers use it (and perhaps it produces 1% of revenue) But it probably cost 0.1-0.2% of the total cost of the line to build it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Jun 2026 ==

Warwick Parkway passengers

Only if they come from the north/west of the station which I am not convinced they do. From the south or east of the station you’d be as fast to get on at Warwick Parkway and wouldn’t have to change.

Plus it assumes no further running time speed up from electrification or newer trains.

Really it’s only Dorridge/Solihull/Moor Street that benefit and only a tiny percentage of Chilterns passengers go from those places to London. Nor these days are there limited stop express services to places like that with most fast services on the Chiltern line calling at Haddenham and Thame and/or High Wycombe as well as Bicester North, Banbury, Leamington Spa and Warwick.

 

[Bald Rick]

Why do you think the people of the Chilterns wouldn’t want the rail line going through their area if there were actually benefits to the project rather than the current position with HS2 where it’s all pain and no gain?

Becasue the people of the Chilterns have form. They didnt want the M40 going through their area, even though there were beenfits to them in terms of how it enabled them to get around by car much more easily and quickly.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Becasue the people of the Chilterns have form. They didnt want the M40 going through their area, even though there were beenfits to them in terms of how it enabled them to get around by car much more easily and quickly.

I’m not sure what specifically you are talking about in terms of the M40?

Are you talking about the M40 north of junction 8 being forced to follow the route recommended by the public enquiry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Meadow

 

[Bald Rick]

I’m not sure what specifically you are talking about in terms of the M40?

Are you talking about the M40 north of junction 8 being forced to follow the route recommended by the public enquiry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice's_Meadow

There’s that, along with many very vocal campaigns when the route was being planned in various stages between the mid 60s and late 80s. There was even a documentary about the construction of the road in the Bicester and Banbury area where this was shown.

To be fair, it’s not just the folk of the Chilterns. It happens with most projects for building new infrastructure. Every new station I’ve been involved with has had local objections, considerably high numbers in some cases.