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The Phase 1 powers expired in February 2022 and given the timelines of Phase 1 and 2a I do wonder if they have all/the vast vast majority already purchased. A quick google search indicates a written question to parliament (UIN HL8410, tabled on 12 June 2025) asking how much land had been...

No this a great example of why it costs so much money to build infrastructure projects in this country compared to say France. This is one of the four key factors identified by the Institution of Civil Engineers as why projects are so expensive (point 3 in this case). It should be made illegal...

There haven’t been any late changes to the design of Phase 1 railway because it would require an act of parliament. What there have been changes to are all the peripheral stuff which goes through the conventional town and country planning act. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qk6g4692o...

The greater capacity means more trains can be run to more places across the new AND existing lines. Passengers benefit. Freight benefit. The economy benefits. Everyone benefits. This is the justification made in France or Japan or anywhere else, and the folk in those countries seem to get that.

Sorry you’re arguing that HS2 should be exempt from the environmental protections that are in place to protect the environment, and everyone else is subject to. Right.

Yes it does. If the EIA/ES etc says to mitigate harm to X you need to do Y you do Y, and you aren’t going to try to get away with not doing Y because the lawyers will pick that apart straight away.

The Environmental Impact Assessment and Environmental Statement for HS2 resulted the long tunnels in the Chilterns before the locals ever got involved.

I’ll say it again-the tunnels are there (quite rightly) to reduce impacts on the AONB, not to appease a bunch of nimbys!

LGV Est was built over two phases as I said. The first phase to Baudrecourt (a field in the middle of nowhere) opened in 2007, the second phase to Strasbourg started construction in 2010 and opened in 2016. I would point out that by its very name HS2 isn’t the first high speed line built in...

Thats three extra stops @ 5-6 minutes each. So you’ve slowed down services by 15-18minutes to potentially gain a few extra passengers. But this is at the expensive of loosing passengers in much larger markets further north because they’ll just stick to their cars or the plane to make their...

Which locals do you annoy less? You can build a station in one place (costing huge amounts of extra money) but that isn’t going to appease the locals further down the line any more. It will just mean thy are more angry and opposed because they didn’t also get a station. So do you build them one...

Using the existing stations does not free up capacity on the existing lines. In fact it makes the whole system worse as delays on the classic lines impact the High Speed line and vice versa. There is a reason the Shinkansen is so reliable. It’s segregated. Building parkway stations was what...

The stations are the most expensive elements. Especially if they are in the centre of towns or cities. You have to purchase large tracts of higher value urban land on which to build your station, then demolish everything, reroute public highways and countless miles of urban services (which are...

London-Newcastle is completely irrelevant when this comment is explicitly in reference to upgrading the A1 between Edinburgh-Newcastle. As above, please read what the comment was in reference to. In terms of burning political capital that is clearly an issue I agree but IMO it was lost when...

So none then! Each intermediate stop adds at least 5 minute so your London (Paris) to Newcastle (Strasbourg) journey takes an extra 25 minutes because you’ve added in a load of extra stops and doesn’t give you anywhere near the same journey time benefit as your French equivalent!

It wouldn’t be a very high speed railway if it stopped at Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds. How many stations will your Paris-Strasbourg train stop at for example?

Because Newcastle-Edinburgh is a relatively small market. Edinburgh is west of Carlisle, and the virtually the entire central belt population (and industry) is west of Edinburgh so it’s sensible that they focussed on a single direct route to the south rather than a circuitous route via the east...

Once you’ve got to just outside York (as you correctly point out) you’re still 5-10 minutes slower than via Golborne. And that’s to Edinburgh only, not ‘Scotland’! Obviously there may be investments you can make between York(ish) and Newcastle which would benefit Newcastle as well as Edinburgh...

That’s the wrong question. The question is where do we spend whatever limited money we have to get the best value for money result. You talk about upgrading the ECML to 140mph but neither of us know how much that will cost. How much time would that actually save between Leeds and Edinburgh...

Please read what I wrote.