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I have to agree with Alistair Darling, serious questions need to be asked about the Secretary of State for Transport who contractually forbade the previous Northern franchise from making any investment such as new rolling stock, saddling them with trains that even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were too...

I've said it before and I've said it again: videoconferencing replacing commuting is always five years in the future, just like hydrogen replacing diesel is always five years in the future.

At the time they changed their policy on high-speed rail, the leader of the Green Party was Natalie Bennett. When she ran for a seat on Camden Council in 2014, Natalie Bennett's registered address was in Somers Town, just east of Euston. Interestingly, the European Greens ran on a pro-HSR...

Pretty much; the Blair government, especially under Darling, were ambivalent at best towards public transport. In some cases, such as Metrolink or Leeds Supertram, they were openly hostile to it. The one good thing about Andrew Adonis was that he made Brown give a toss about the railway.

Telecommuting as a replacement for actual commuting is always five years in the future, just like how hydrogen fuel cells to replace diesel are also five years in the future. End result is a Prime Minister whose government approves only nine miles of electrification after ten years in office.

The Green Party started to heavily oppose HS2 when Natalie Bennett became leader. When she became leader, she lived in Somers Town. I'm not saying those two facts are linked, but...

The conference debate that made the Lib Dems (at least nationally) unequivocally HS2 was pretty fun to watch, because you could tell the southern speakers weren't happy about getting rid of the fudge, but the northern speakers were very pro-HS2. That we managed to get the amendment through at a...

The Western arm may survive as a bribe to the likes of Street and Burnham. However, the Tories demonstrably don't give a **** about Yorkshire and will probably refuse to meet with Jarvis or the WYCA. Leeds have been on the short end of "we have to cancel this but we promise we'll give you...

I'm pretty sure that HS2 is due for another uprating due to inflation this autumn; expect the new figure to be £63bn. Of course, this is entirely inflation, but the likes of Mr Buslanes and Natalie Bennett to not grasp that.

Interestingly, one of the antis on Twitter (who I swear has HS2 in his saved searches) is complaining about the idea that HS2 should do better PR because, supposedly being a quango, HS2 shouldn't be allowed to do PR whatsoever.

If you're wanting a Prime Minister to not be swayed by big-ticket items, then I don't think Boris "Arabfly Dangleway" "Garden Bridge" "Explosive Shipwreck International Airport" Johnson is your man.

I believe the technical term is "Arabfly Dangleway".

If an appreciable increase in capacity could be realised by just adding an F road to the Euston throat and a few platforms to the station, don't you think NR would've figured that out by now?

The GCML, I believe, also shares its tracks with the tube between Amersham and Harrow on the Hill. That's okay if you're only sending a train or two an hour up to Aylesbury and beyond, but for the intensive service needed for a main line going to Birmingham and points north, that's not going to...

This is the exact same attitude as Chris Grayling saying "the Snow Hill tunnels can handle 24tph; why can't the Castlefield viaduct?"

UKIP did a complete about-turn on high-speed rail between the 2010 and 2015 elections in an effort to topple influential Tories along the line. For their efforts, they won a grand total of… zero seats along the line. They weren't even close. I can see your attitude to passenger numbers is...

Of course, such considerations regarding judicial review haven't stopped Chris Grayling from bigging up Crossrail 2. Speaking of Chris, I've heard he's thrown his ring into a hat and has declared his intention to stand for party leader. Lib Dem sources said the nomination was surprising and...

In the grand scheme of things, the amount of ancient woodland being affected is actually pretty small; I think Phase 1 requires the removal of about one motorway service station's worth of woodland. It's not the best, but it's a worthwhile sacrifice when compared to the alternative (which would...

Though if we did Crossrail's accounting in the same way HS2's accounting has been done, Crossrail would be around £20bn and change; the Crossrail headline cost doesn't includes the 345s, but the HS2 headline cost includes rolling stock.

Oh, it'll be fine, we can just blast a 200km/h+ line through urban sprawl (with no rail connectivity to speak of at the moment) and it'll be cheaper and more popular than routing it next to the M1. High Speed UK said so.