HS2 could cost up to £102.7bn and trains won't start until at least 2036

[Bletchleyite]

What units are going to run these 125mph services, HS2 stock will be in short supply, 390's will be gone and the 720's are 110mph so new build and more cost then? None tilt 110 vice 125mph saves very little south of Birmingham so an all 110mph timetable helps planning/capacity and may even save money on maintenance, HS2 will provide the fast services to Birmingham and north.

I don't think the residual IC operation being 110mph would be an issue. I do think having all or most MKC-Brum services run via Northampton inadequate as it is poor competition with the car. There needs to be a service not via Northampton.

There is likely to be new build rolling stock of some kind, though the 805s and 807s will still be around there aren't enough of those, nor of 730s.

 

[Sorcerer]

Between London and Birmingham, 110mph max probably won't be a huge issue thanks to the greater acceleration of modern rolling stock (the 807s manage the Liverpool service only about seven minutes slower than 390s despite the extra stop at Liverpool South Parkway). The 125mph running on the West Coast Main Line mostly came from a desire to mix fast intercity services competitive with airlines and slower regional traffic. HS2 would basically remove that mix meaning 125mph isn't as important as connectivity.

For me the real issue is how we'll have trains capable of twice those speeds running on existing infrastructure to the extent that they will. Replacing the 390s is fine because they were going to be life-expired by then anyway and they are filling the niche of express passenger on the London-Birmingham-Manchester axis, but the 807s would've still good enough to retain for the classic London-Manchester service which would be complemented by the HS2 Manchester services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For me the real issue is how we'll have trains capable of twice those speeds running on existing infrastructure to the extent that they will. Replacing the 390s is fine because they were going to be life-expired by then anyway and they are filling the niche of express passenger on the London-Birmingham-Manchester axis, but the 807s would've still good enough to retain for the classic London-Manchester service which would be complemented by the HS2 Manchester services.

Surely that's no different from having 140mph 80x bimbling around Cornwall on stopping trains or around the North West on TPE? If you buy a regional train these days it'll be 110mph and an intercity one will be high speed, that's just how the market is now. You can save money if your mainline is quite slow by buying regional trains with pointy noses, of course, but if these are already on order and committed and the cost of changing the order is high I really don't see a problem with using them.

 

[marshlinker]

Im not suggesting it w

I'd imagine much of the park and ride traffic not headed for Brum would switch, but there will be plenty arriving on foot, bike and bus who won't.

It'll be less busy but it won't be a wasteland. Village stations where basically everyone gets there by car are very different.

It wont be a wasteland but there will be major extraction from the WCML. Even for someone arriving at Coventry on foot the easiest fastest way to for instance Canary Wharf or Excel will be Train to Birmingham International, HS2 to old Oak Common, Elizabeth Line to Canary wharf.

 

[Sorcerer]

Surely that's no different from having 140mph 80x bimbling around Cornwall on stopping trains or around the North West on TPE? If you buy a regional train these days it'll be 110mph and an intercity one will be high speed, that's just how the market is now. You can save money if your mainline is quite slow by buying regional trains with pointy noses, of course, but if these are already on order and committed and the cost of changing the order is high I really don't see a problem with using them.

In a vacuum no, having a train running below it's max capable running speed isn't unusual, in fact it's quite common even in Italy where the Frecciarossa runs 60mph slower than it's max capability. But I do think there's still a fair difference between a train running below 140mph on routes reaching 125mph, and one intended to run at 225mph being confined to 110mph. Arguably more of a grievance towards the HS2 delays and project management than the train order itself mind you.

 

[marshlinker]

Surely that's no different from having 140mph 80x bimbling around Cornwall on stopping trains or around the North West on TPE? If you buy a regional train these days it'll be 110mph and an intercity one will be high speed, that's just how the market is now. You can save money if your mainline is quite slow by buying regional trains with pointy noses, of course, but if these are already on order and committed and the cost of changing the order is high I really don't see a problem with using them.

No idea if its true but at a meeting on the HS-Marshlink link, I was told by an official that class 800 trains were actually specified with a 125 mph top speed in order to accommodate the diesel engines and fuel tanks. The context being I had asked about providing a small follow on order of 800s (along with a crossover at Ashford) to provide a through St Pancras to Hastings service.

 

[Palmerston]

Im not suggesting it w

It wont be a wasteland but there will be major extraction from the WCML. Even for someone arriving at Coventry on foot the easiest fastest way to for instance Canary Wharf or Excel will be Train to Birmingham International, HS2 to old Oak Common, Elizabeth Line to Canary wharf.

If it's 15 min to Bham Int, 5 min to get to Interchange, wait 10 mins for a train and then 40 mins to Old Oak Common, that's 70 mins, which is also about the same time to get to Euston, if you stop at Rugby, MK and Watford.

I'm not sure which is easier, but suspect WCML will still be more popular, but it's fairly equal, more so than I'd have guessed

 

[zwk500]

If it's 15 min to Bham Int, 5 min to get to Interchange, wait 10 mins for a train and then 40 mins to Old Oak Common, that's 70 mins, which is also about the same time to get to Euston, if you stop at Rugby, MK and Watford.

I'm not sure which is easier, but suspect WCML will still be more popular, but it's fairly equal, more so than I'd have guessed

But remember that people who currently use Coventry station live in the suburbs, so the door to door journey time will be faster via HS2 for some in Coventry but faster via Rugby for others in Coventry.

It's a 15-30 minute drive from suburban Coventry to Birmingham Interchange (probably 30-60 mins in peak times), but a 20-30 minute journey from suburban Coventry to Coventry rail station via Public transport. Although Coventry's ring road probably means driving to Coventry station itself is decently competitive, with off-peak journey times suggested at 10-15 mins and the 2 huge multi-story car parks available.

 

[Farigiraf]

Even for someone arriving at Coventry on foot the easiest fastest way to for instance Canary Wharf or Excel will be Train to Birmingham International, HS2 to old Oak Common, Elizabeth Line to Canary wharf.

Are you sure?
Coventry - International is about 15 minutes. 5 minute MCT, then another 5 minutes on the monorail to Interchange. Let's say 10 minutes to wait for your booked HS2 train (realistically you should allocate more than that if all trains are compulsory reservation). That's 35 minutes passed. Another 35 minutes on the train to Old Oak Common, then maybe 10 minutes until you board an EL train. About 25 minutes to get to Canary Wharf. Total = 105 minutes or 1h 45.

Alternatively you could take the train straight to Euston (70min), change to the tube (10min), then go via Farringdon/Bank/London Bridge to Canary Wharf (35min). Total = 115 mins or 1h 55.
For a 10 minute time saving, you change 3 times rather than twice and pay HS2's premium fares. Not sure that'll be too popular.

Though of course few people actually start their journey in Coventry city centre, and most people also have access to a car. From an outer suburb of the city it won't take more than about 5-10mins extra to drive to HS2 Interchange rather than Coventry station, and parking fees will likely be similar at both sites. There'll probably also be buses to the Interchange but the low speed of the bus will offset HS2's time savings.

I'm sure Birmingham Interchange will be relatively well used (compared to other HSR parkways in Europe at least) but you also have to factor in those without access to a car, those opting for P&R at Warwick Parkway or a tube station, those visiting Coventry and those that don't want to deal with HS2's inflexible premium fares. Plus people travelling between Coventry and MK/Watford for whom the 40 minute Northampton detour is enough to make the train no longer worth taking. For a station with a catchment of about 400,000 people that's more than enough to fill a decent proportion of the seats on a half-hourly classic lines fast service (noting that most seats will anyway be taken by London - Milton Keynes pax).

 

[marshlinker]

Are you sure?
Coventry - International is about 15 minutes. 5 minute MCT, then another 5 minutes on the monorail to Interchange. Let's say 10 minutes to wait for your booked HS2 train (realistically you should allocate more than that if all trains are compulsory reservation). That's 35 minutes passed. Another 35 minutes on the train to Old Oak Common, then maybe 10 minutes until you board an EL train. About 25 minutes to get to Canary Wharf. Total = 105 minutes or 1h 45.

Alternatively you could take the train straight to Euston (70min), change to the tube (10min), then go via Farringdon/Bank/London Bridge to Canary Wharf (35min). Total = 115 mins or 1h 55.
For a 10 minute time saving, you change 3 times rather than twice and pay HS2's premium fares. Not sure that'll be too popular.

Though of course few people actually start their journey in Coventry city centre, and most people also have access to a car. From an outer suburb of the city it won't take more than about 5-10mins extra to drive to HS2 Interchange rather than Coventry station, and parking fees will likely be similar at both sites. There'll probably also be buses to the Interchange but the low speed of the bus will offset HS2's time savings.

I'm sure Birmingham Interchange will be relatively well used (compared to other HSR parkways in Europe at least) but you also have to factor in those without access to a car, those opting for P&R at Warwick Parkway or a tube station, those visiting Coventry and those that don't want to deal with HS2's inflexible premium fares. Plus people travelling between Coventry and MK/Watford for whom the 40 minute Northampton detour is enough to make the train no longer worth taking. For a station with a catchment of about 400,000 people that's more than enough to fill a decent proportion of the seats on a half-hourly classic lines fast service (noting that most seats will anyway be taken by London - Milton Keynes pax).

Yes,
it will be the frequency that sorts it. Changing at Euston and Totenham Court Rd is 2 changes, 3 trains. Via birmingham International is the same. People said that the HS1 fares would put people off but today its full and standing on peak trains wheras the Ashford to London peak trains via Tonbridge are ghost trains until Paddock Wood. Why would you have any reservations on a high frequency service taking less than an hour? the budget market will be presumably still catered for on the via Northampton trains.

 

[Farigiraf]

it will be the frequency that sorts it.

So travelling 10 miles out of the city in order to wait 10-15 minutes less for a train is more convenient than simply waiting for up to half an hour at Coventry station?

Changing at Euston and Totenham Court Rd is 2 changes, 3 trains. Via birmingham International is the same.

Birmingham International and Birmingham Interchange will not be in the same place. They're building a little gadgetbahn people mover to get passengers between the two stations, the NEC and the airport. International, Interchange and Old Oak Common is 3 changes.

People said that the HS1 fares would put people off but today its full and standing on peak trains wheras the Ashford to London peak trains via Tonbridge are ghost trains until Paddock Wood.

The Birmingham-London shuttles on HS2 will be full of people from... Birmingham. There's a lot of demand between the UK's largest and 2nd largest city, and this will only increase as businesses realise that the West Midlands is no longer a miserable place and the trains are fast, reliable and high capacity. Among those using Interchange station, there'll be travellers from places without a convenient rail connection to London, like Coleshill or Castle Bromwich, as well as people travelling to/from the NEC. Budget airline airports and inflexible railway services rarely go together so I'm not expecting many air travellers though.

If in addition to that, the remaining few seats are filled with people park&riding from the outer suburbs of Solihull or Coventry, who would rather drive out of town and pay a little extra instead of using their convenient local station, that's great, but that's a minority of travellers.

Your HS1 parallels strengthens my point - the trains are full of passengers from Ashford, Canterbury, Medway and Thanet. HS2's equivalents are Birmingham, Manchester, Stoke and Liverpool - places outside of London's commuter zone but with 5-10x higher populations and a leisure travel market that's currently priced off the railway. Birmingham Interchange's HS1 equivalent is Ebbsfleet, which you'd recognise is a bit of a white elephant right now if you saw the empty car parks (it's not useless but far from how busy it could've been).

Why would you have any reservations on a high frequency service taking less than an hour?

I agree it's nuts but it's more or less guaranteed that other HS2 services will be mandatory reservation so I don't see why 3 services an hour, using the same rolling stock and ticketing system as other HS2 services, will be excluded. Even if reservations somehow won't be compulsory, it's likely that nearly all HS2 tickets sold will be advances (based on GBR's proposed fares policy) so there won't be much 'turn up and go' HS2 travel.

For reference, a New Street - Euston anytime return is £197 (£72 for the Off-Peak, with both morning and evening peak restrictions) - they may introduce an anytime day return post-HS2 but I reckon you have a better chance of convincing the DfT to reinstate phase 2 than to reduce the price of any existing fares.

the budget market will be presumably still catered for on the via Northampton trains.

That is if operator-specific fares will still be a thing 10 years from now, rather than a mix of PAYG for commuter networks and dynamic pricing for nearly everything else. With or without dynamic pricing, I expect fares from Coventry to London on the WCML to be quite a bit cheaper than HS2 from Interchange.

I suppose the 30-40 min time penalty from diverting everything via Northampton may reduce demand even more, which will result in some bargain fares for those with far more time than money, but if post-HS2 you have the capacity to give Coventry a fast, frequent and high capacity London connection while also upping frequencies along the London-Northampton commuter corridor then why not do both? If anything Northampton could do with better Trent Valley connections, not more trains towards Birmingham, though that requires phase 2A.

 

[HSTEd]

I'm not sure to the extent I buy the argument that Birmingham dedicated Captive sets would be a problematic microfleet argument.

For example, if we had eight 400m crowdbuster sets, either using a custom interior long TGV-M formation or just a big German EMU with the biggest possible interior, they would be able to move vast numbers of people. 8 sets of 16 25m vehicles each would still be 128 vehicles, making far from the smallest active train class!

We could flood the Birmingham-London market (and connecting markets!) with cheap advances that still have a less negative net cost to the railway than other options passengers might take.
Its probably much cheaper for the railway to move Tamworth-London passengers via Curzon Street as an example. We could probably set fares that entice people into changing from New Street to Curzon street and still be net up.

Plus a ~40m journey from Curzon Street to Crossrail at Old Oak Common could easily lead to exploding demand if affordable tickets were provided.

 

[zwk500]

I'm not sure to the extent I buy the argument that Birmingham dedicated Captive sets would be a problematic microfleet argument.

For example, if we had eight 400m crowdbuster sets, either using a custom interior long TGV-M formation or just a big German EMU with the biggest possible interior, they would be able to move vast numbers of people. 8 sets of 16 25m vehicles each would still be 128 vehicles, making far from the smallest active train class!

We could flood the Birmingham-London market (and connecting markets!) with cheap advances that still have a less negative net cost to the railway than other options passengers might take.
Its probably much cheaper for the railway to move Tamworth-London passengers via Curzon Street as an example. We could probably set fares that entice people into changing from New Street to Curzon street and still be net up.

Plus a ~40m journey from Curzon Street to Crossrail at Old Oak Common could easily lead to exploding demand if affordable tickets were provided.

How big an impact has the platform design had on the viability of a HS2 captive Double-deck design? It's all very well having UIC-GC cleared bridges but AIUI the platforms are at 1,100 or 1,200mm and close enough for level boarding with classic-compatible stop, so can you get 2+2 on the lower deck of a 'GC-HS2' train?

 

[mmh]

I'm not sure to the extent I buy the argument that Birmingham dedicated Captive sets would be a problematic microfleet argument.

For example, if we had eight 400m crowdbuster sets, either using a custom interior long TGV-M formation or just a big German EMU with the biggest possible interior, they would be able to move vast numbers of people. 8 sets of 16 25m vehicles each would still be 128 vehicles, making far from the smallest active train class!

We could flood the Birmingham-London market (and connecting markets!) with cheap advances that still have a less negative net cost to the railway than other options passengers might take.
Its probably much cheaper for the railway to move Tamworth-London passengers via Curzon Street as an example. We could probably set fares that entice people into changing from New Street to Curzon street and still be net up.

Plus a ~40m journey from Curzon Street to Crossrail at Old Oak Common could easily lead to exploding demand if affordable tickets were provided.

What crowd are you busting? Who are all these people who want to go between Birmingham and London? Why does speeding up their journey matter?

Even more than ever nobody can explain why we're building HS2 other than some "west coast mainline full Milton Keynes freight" nonsense.

It should have been killed completely when everything north of Birmingham was killed.

 

[HSTEd]

How big an impact has the platform design had on the viability of a HS2 captive Double-deck design? It's all very well having UIC-GC cleared bridges but AIUI the platforms are at 1,100 or 1,200mm and close enough for level boarding with classic-compatible stop, so can you get 2+2 on the lower deck of a 'GC-HS2' train?

As far as I know the GC loading gauge is still intact, with level boarding to be provided by a flip out step. I hadn't heard anything to the contrary of that view but I may be out of touch.

In any case, a TGV Duplex is only 4.3m tall with a bottom floor level about ~315mm above the railhead. With the 4.7m of GC gauge height to play with the lower deck could be 660mm or so off the railhead and maintain a TGV Duplex interior.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

What crowd are you busting? Who are all these people who want to go between Birmingham and London? Why does speeding up their journey matter?

Faster journeys have historically resulted in increasing journey volumes.
Birmingham International will be at a comparable distance from Old Oak Common as Maidenhead is on Crossrail. Curzon Street will be somewhere akin to Taplow Twyford. We would normally expect radically increased traffic volumes from such journey time reductions. With the western leg gone we are also in a position to provide turn up and go frequency on this segment.

The marginal cost of providing additional seats on the core segment is very low, such that cheap fares will still result in a net positive income for the railway.

EDIT: Edited to correct a reference to Taplow that should be Twyford!

 

[Annetts key]

What crowd are you busting? Who are all these people who want to go between Birmingham and London? Why does speeding up their journey matter?

Even more than ever nobody can explain why we're building HS2 other than some "west coast mainline full Milton Keynes freight" nonsense.

It should have been killed completely when everything north of Birmingham was killed.

It's to increase capacity. Despite what some say, generally passenger levels are increasing again. So at some point the existing route will be at "full" capacity.

What's your proposal? To employ special staff to cram the existing trains with more passengers?

 

[MarlowDonkey]

Birmingham International will be at a comparable distance from Old Oak Common as Maidenhead is on Crossrail. Curzon Street will be somewhere akin to Taplow. We would normally expect radically increased traffic volumes from such journey time reductions. With the western leg gone we are also in a position to provide turn up and go frequency on this segment.

You wouldn't expect to have to buy an Advance ticket to get a sensible price from London to Taplow or Maidenhead.

 

[Merle Haggard]

/snip

I suppose the 30-40 min time penalty from diverting everything via Northampton may reduce demand even more, which will result in some bargain fares for those with far more time than money, but if post-HS2 you have the capacity to give Coventry a fast, frequent and high capacity London connection while also upping frequencies along the London-Northampton commuter corridor then why not do both? If anything Northampton could do with better Trent Valley connections, not more trains towards Birmingham, though that requires phase 2A.

I'm a bit puzzled by your assessment that diverting via Northampton costs 30 -40 minutes.

The Trent Valley LNw trains take about 23 minutes Rugby to Milton Keynes and the Birmingham ones take 47 - 50 minutes - 24 - 27 minutes longer - for the same journey. However, 12 - 15 minutes of that 24 minutes is spent standing at Northampton, essentially to match paths North and South. They also make 3 extra station stops. The aim of HS2 was because of congestion on the present route, so, if it achieves its objectives better path availability will avoid having to wait for up to a quarter of an hour for a path on the main line South of Hanslope.

 

[HSTEd]

You wouldn't expect to have to buy an Advance ticket to get a sensible price from London to Taplow or Maidenhead.

The capacity is so cheap to provide we could probably sell walk up fares at lower cost than many tickets on the classic trains.
However people are increasingly using advances on comparatively short journeys.

 

[JonathanH]

The capacity is so cheap to provide we could probably sell walk up fares at lower cost than many tickets on the classic trains.
However people are increasingly using advances on comparatively short journeys.

If the capacity is cheap and fares stay high, then at least that would provide some way of recovering the huge cost over run. Passing the savings back to the taxpayer is probably more appropriate than letting passengers have cheap fares. On the other hand it is likely to appropriate to get Birmingham to London travellers off other parts of the railway.

 

[zwk500]

As far as I know the GC loading gauge is still intact, with level boarding to be provided by a flip out step. I hadn't heard anything to the contrary of that view but I may be out of touch.

Oh thank goodness some sense prevailed. I can't remember where I read it but I do remember seeing something saying the platforms wouldn't be GC distance back from the rails.

In any case, a TGV Duplex is only 4.3m tall with a bottom floor level about ~315mm above the railhead. With the 4.7m of GC gauge height to play with the lower deck could be 660mm or so off the railhead and maintain a TGV Duplex interior.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Sep 2026 ==

I wasn't worried about the height from rail to bridge underside, but the width available to fit 2+2 seating on the lower deck if the platform was being built to UK setback distance. However, that appears to not be the case.

 

[HSTEd]

If the capacity is cheap and fares stay high, then at least that would provide some way of recovering the huge cost over run. Passing the savings back to the taxpayer is probably more appropriate than letting passengers have cheap fares. On the other hand it is likely to appropriate to get Birmingham to London travellers off other parts of the railway.

Well I'd say that rail best makes money when dealing in bulk, "pile it high and sell it cheap".

If we can generate Elizabeth Line/Crossrail level exploding traffic then it will probably do more than selling a relative handful of high margin tickets.
I think there is also, beyond simple economics, something to be gained in political terms from large traffic figures.

Capacity is also likely to be much cheaper to provide than on the classic railway.

 

[The Planner]

What crowd are you busting? Who are all these people who want to go between Birmingham and London? Why does speeding up their journey matter?

Even more than ever nobody can explain why we're building HS2 other than some "west coast mainline full Milton Keynes freight" nonsense.

It should have been killed completely when everything north of Birmingham was killed.

So how do you accomodate growth in the future. It is full. Just because political decisions have destroyed the project, it doesnt mean its original purpose is invalid.

 

[Palmerston]

What crowd are you busting? Who are all these people who want to go between Birmingham and London? Why does speeding up their journey matter?

Even more than ever nobody can explain why we're building HS2 other than some "west coast mainline full Milton Keynes freight" nonsense.

It should have been killed completely when everything north of Birmingham was killed.

Multiple factors affect demand for tickets.

It's about 1h20 to Bham today. That comes down to 50 mins with HS2. Assume an inverse relationship and you could easily see a 50% increase just on this.

Passenger experience will be better - 3 trains per hour, leaving a shiny new station and delays likely to be far lower as it's a new, captive line.

Fares assume stay the same because the government wants to see lots of passengers.

Traffic has been growing year on year anyway, and HS2 won't open for ages. When it does, you could easily see double the number of today's journeys within a couple of years.

Ok, it's an optimistic view, but look at passenger numbers on the Elizabeth line

 

[Bletchleyite]

Ok, it's an optimistic view, but look at passenger numbers on the Elizabeth line

There will certainly be a "sparks effect", but with 7 trains per hour from London to Brum across the 3 routes (3 Avanti though one is slower, 2 WMT, 2 Chiltern) I wonder to what extent the market is saturated? It will be interesting to see. An economic boost as Brum becomes in effect a suburb of London might create more.

 

[Watershed]

Fares assume stay the same because the government wants to see lots of passengers.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a safe assumption at all. Experience shows us that the government is desperate to increase fares revenue by any means possible. So I think we will see revenue-maximised pricing on HS2 whereby the only tickets available will be either Anytime tickets which will probably still require a reservation for a particular train, or Advance tickets that are in many cases more or less the same as what Avanti charge now.

Notably, the Avanti trains that are the most expensive at the moment are not the ones that are the busiest, so it is a revenue maximisation strategy, not an exercise in evening out. The priciest trains are the ones that Avanti think they can charge the most for, because business travellers (or people who live a long way from London who have to commute in occasionally) are going to use them and they tend to be more willing to pay a higher price.

 

[HSTEd]

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a safe assumption at all. Experience shows us that the government is desperate to increase fares revenue by any means possible. So I think we will see revenue-maximised pricing on HS2 whereby the only tickets available will be either Anytime tickets which will probably still require a reservation for a particular train, or Advance tickets that are in many cases more or less the same as what Avanti charge now.

Notably, the Avanti trains that are the most expensive at the moment are not the ones that are the busiest, so it is a revenue maximisation strategy, not an exercise in evening out. The priciest trains are the ones that Avanti think they can charge the most for, because business travellers (or people who live a long way from London who have to commute in occasionally) are going to use them and they tend to be more willing to pay a higher price.

I'd argue the better example of revenue maximisation is the Elizabeth line, where opening the core produced a revenue increase of something like £500m based essentially on massive volume.
The Elizabeth line is now something like 5.8% of the entire railway farebox.

I think its also far from clear if the Avanti revenue maximisation strategy actually minimises net cost of the railway to the taxpayer, it makes the most out of the supply of seats on Avanti, sure. But it means peak trains haul air whilst the government is forced to spend more money on LNWR operations to carry the people priced off.
Making £1 net revenue each from 100 people is much better than making £10 each from 5 people.

It is in the railway industry's (and thus the government's) financial interest that the only people that use the classic line are people who physically cannot be carried on HS2. It's probably in its interest to the point of encourage doubling back on Chiltern for places like Solihull etc that loadings on Chiltern line trains are flattened as much as possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is in the railway industry's (and thus the government's) financial interest that the only people that use the classic line are people who physically cannot be carried on HS2. It's probably in its interest to the point of encourage doubling back on Chiltern for places like Solihull etc that loadings on Chiltern line trains are flattened as much as possible.

Particularly given that Chiltern is wedded to 5 car trains for the foreseeable.

I think Chiltern will become more of a commuter operation post HS2 with a higher frequency of trains but more stops in them all. I wouldn't even rule out the idea that it could get lopped back to Banbury as a pure play commuter operation with an electric West Midlands service closing the gap at some point - the classic WCML will provide the budget option.

 

[JonathanH]

Unfortunately, I don't think this is a safe assumption at all. Experience shows us that the government is desperate to increase fares revenue by any means possible. So I think we will see revenue-maximised pricing on HS2 whereby the only tickets available will be either Anytime tickets which will probably still require a reservation for a particular train, or Advance tickets that are in many cases more or less the same as what Avanti charge now.

Notably, the Avanti trains that are the most expensive at the moment are not the ones that are the busiest, so it is a revenue maximisation strategy, not an exercise in evening out. The priciest trains are the ones that Avanti think they can charge the most for, because business travellers (or people who live a long way from London who have to commute in occasionally) are going to use them and they tend to be more willing to pay a higher price.

The natural corollary of that is that the fares for other means of travel between Birmingham need to be increased as well. Arguably, the best outcome for DfT is HS2 providing the cheapest fare, but that cheapest fare not being cheap. (We also have to remember that this isn't until 2037 by which time all sorts of changes to fare policy could have been applied.)

 

[Bletchleyite]

The natural corollary of that is that the fares for other means of travel between Birmingham need to be increased as well. Arguably, the best outcome for DfT is HS2 providing the cheapest fare, but that cheapest fare not being cheap. (We also have to remember that this isn't until 2037 by which time all sorts of changes to fare policy could have been applied.)

Don't forget that cars and coaches have not gone away and will not go away. Increasing all London-Brum fares to present Avanti levels (or higher) would just cause a huge loss of passengers from the railway to other modes.

It may be that HS2 trains half empty but with high fares make the most money as per morning peak Avantis, but that puts in serious doubt the appropriateness of the huge sums of public money that went into building it, paid in taxes by rich and poor alike. Subsidy to build a rich man's toy is very questionable indeed.