High Speed Two (HS2) discussion

[joeykins82]

It's not an £80bn project though, that's an outright lie by the Institute for Economic Affairs who are an absurdly right-wing think tank who want to see all government spending eradicated so that no-one ever has to pay tax. That is their answer to the question of what we should do about WCML capacity in place of HS2: "The IEA concludes that the only option is to scrap HS2 and use the money saved to reduce taxes."

That bastion of the socialist left media, erm City AM thoroughly debunked the latest myth.

http://www.cityam.com/article/1376877751/hs2-rubbishes-claim-costs-could-hit-80bn
http://www.cityam.com/blog/1376904189/why-hs2-wont-cost-80bn

HS2 is not, repeat NOT a journey time improvement scheme. It is a capacity scheme. Think of it as 6-tracking the WCML. It just happens that if you're going to spend lots of money building a new railway then you should build something that will be suitable for a century or more instead of squeezing another maybe 7 years of capacity from a resignalling scheme.

 

[PR1Berske]

It's not an £80bn project though, that's an outright lie by the Institute for Economic Affairs who are an absurdly right-wing think tank who want to see all government spending eradicated so that no-one ever has to pay tax. That is their answer to the question of what we should do about WCML capacity in place of HS2: "The IEA concludes that the only option is to scrap HS2 and use the money saved to reduce taxes."

That bastion of the socialist left media, erm City AM thoroughly debunked the latest myth.

http://www.cityam.com/article/1376877751/hs2-rubbishes-claim-costs-could-hit-80bn
http://www.cityam.com/blog/1376904189/why-hs2-wont-cost-80bn

HS2 is not, repeat NOT a journey time improvement scheme. It is a capacity scheme. Think of it as 6-tracking the WCML. It just happens that if you're going to spend lots of money building a new railway then you should build something that will be suitable for a century or more instead of squeezing another maybe 7 years of capacity from a resignalling scheme.

Every ministerial announcement has pushed the project as a way to get people into London faster/sooner/earlier/quicker than they can now. So yes, it's a journey time improvement project.

If you're going to spend upto and possibly including £80bn, then build on what we have (infrastructure in place) than what we don't have (endless amount of countryside).

Commuters who could afford HS2 are already working from home, video-conferencing, on-line working and heavens knows what else. There's no justification in hanging this project on their backs when in 20 or 30 years time, office life as we know it would have ended.

Better to expand what we can for less, than build an elephant for more.

I used to be you, pro-HS2 because of the opportunities it might provide. But "might" is not enough when there's going to be a massive line ignoring huge towns and cities across England just to allow management classes in the suburbs to get to London faster than the proles.

(And remember that HS2 has already been debunked as an economy driver because more journeys happen INTO London than OUT)

Darling is right - the money spent can't be justified when there's already a rail system in place.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Good grief, Alastair Darling's grasp of economics is so poor it's not wonder he made a hash of the economy.

More stupid anti-HS2 letters in today's Grauniad

 

[YorkshireBear]

I've changed my mind about HS2, and am gladdened by Alistair Darling sounding exactly like me in his comment in the Times this morning.

My support for HS2 has been switched to outright opposition just by basic research. A £80bn project to make commuter times 20/30 minutes faster is obscene, not least because it's based on the wrong assumption that commuters/workers in 2030/2040 would be using the railways for the same reason as they do now.

It'd be far better to scrap HS2 and focus part of the money on where it really matters - Brum to the east coast, the South West in general, Manchester and Liverpool, cross-Pennine routes.

My support for HS2 was on the basis of the "big picture", the ideal of a nationwide infrastructure project bigger than any other. But the ideal is fractured. As a country - as an island no less - we cannot afford, justify, or allow HS2 to happen. It's too big a pricetag for too little a product.

It won't cost 80 billion.

And it isn't for commuters.

Why is it a wrong assumption? People have used railways for that for around 150 years? What makes you think its going to change in next 15 years? What evidence is there of anything? Teleconferencing just isn't taking off at all. The company i work for still travel to meetings all over the country regularly.

 

[PR1Berske]

Good grief, Alastair Darling's grasp of economics is so poor it's not wonder he made a hash of the economy.

More stupid anti-HS2 letters in today's Grauniad

What's so "stupid" about this?

if you want to improve British transport, spend the £40bn electrifying and upgrading the nation's existing railway track and build new (but normal speed) links between east and west (try getting from Norwich to Liverpool).

Have you tried getting east-west in this country? Why not be more radical by building, say, Blackpool to Sunderland or Wales to Norfolk? Why not attempt a direct line or improved infrastructure from one part of the country which is in need of economic support (Cumbria, the SW, the East Midlands) to another (ditto), rather than into and out of London, the only part of the country which bucked (and bucks) the recession?

And what's so stupid about this:

As someone living in Warwickshire and about a mile from the proposed line, I am reminded that 0.39% of the UK population travel between Birmingham and London by train. Even if they were all to switch over to HS2, which obviously they won't, the cost per passenger would be £332,000. I guess the cost of using the system will be subsidised. I wonder who will be expected to pick that up?

The HS2 line ignores dozens upon dozens of towns and cities with millions of people living in them. They would have to stick with slow lines and outdated stock because of the HS2 vanity project.

Spend a fraction of the cost on linking Warwickshire with neighbouring towns, and you've got a reason to travel.

Spend £40bn, £50bn, £80bn, whatever, on a London-Birmingham shuttle? Pointless.

 

[joeykins82]

Every ministerial announcement has pushed the project as a way to get people into London faster/sooner/earlier/quicker than they can now. So yes, it's a journey time improvement project.

That's because ministers and their advisers think that selling a capacity scheme to the public is impossible, so they focus on talking about the high-speed aspects. It's a capacity scheme that will result in journey time improvements to intercity rail travel, but the key driver is getting LDHS traffic off the southern end of the WCML so that commuters in the Northampton to Euston corridor can actually fit in to the trains that are already maximum length and as frequently as they possibly can operate.

 

[PR1Berske]

That's because ministers and their advisers think that selling a capacity scheme to the public is impossible, so they focus on talking about the high-speed aspects. It's a capacity scheme that will result in journey time improvements to intercity rail travel, but the key driver is getting LDHS traffic off the southern end of the WCML so that commuters in the Northampton to Euston corridor can actually fit in to the trains that are already maximum length and as frequently as they possibly can operate.

So another lie - "it's about providing economic growth to the North" - is proven wrong.

We've got a rail infrastructure system in place, now, which just needs the focused investment it has sadly lacked for generations. HS2 is not that investment, which is why I hope it is scrapped. Labour would do well to do to follow Darling's advice and end it as soon as they win the election.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Darling is right - the money spent can't be justified when there's already a rail system in place.

Then why are we building new runways, Crossrail, new roads.

 

[edwin_m]

Some rather tipsy gentlemen on their way home from York Races last night noticed I was doing some railway-related work on my laptop and asked me why we should be spending £40bn on saving 15min. I explained the point that it is all about capacity and they got it straight away.

With Transpennine and Blackpool electrification, Northern Hub etc quite a lot is being spent on east-west routes and will deliver faster and more reliable journeys with more seats. However even after this is finished it would be relatively easy to add more capacity simply by lengthening the trains, so there is no need to build large amounts of extra track on east-west routes. However on the WCML and to some extent also the ECML and MML trains are near their maximum possible length as well as maximum possible frequency.

While the project is generally thought about as being all about journeys to London that isn't entirely true. The Y-shaped allows journeys from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds and these are in the draft timetables. Though they aren't included in current plans it would be possible for journeys like Manchester-Scotland also to use some of the HS2 infrastructure, and as discussed elsewhere Transport Scotland is looking at building sections of the route towards Glasgow and Edinburgh which could initially carry trains that run to/from England by existing routes and would eventually link up with a HS2 extension. Going by the attitude of TS and authorities such as TfGM, there is a lot of enthusiasm for the project in northern Britain.

Somewhere in the HS2 documentation there is a report which says that if extra north-south capacity is needed beyond HS2, the best option would be to build another route out of London up the east side of the country, to join the Leeds route somewhere in the East Midlands, rather than four-tracking the Birmingham route.

 

[PR1Berske]

Then why are we building new runways, Crossrail, new roads.

Comparing apples with oranges. I understand the need for airport expansion - but we all accept that Heathrow is in the wrong place, so a more radical solution is probably needed there.

Crossrail is a London project, not a national one, a different beast entirely, connecting the capital more like tying together string.

"New roads" is too general a snidey remark to put my way. In some cases new road projects aren't justified, in others they are.

HS2 is not the same as Crossrail, linking different parts of London with very close together stations. It is designed to divert away from massive towns and cities, ignore millions of people, and ultimately only link London (already well connected) to Birmingham. It's not useful to have a shuttle service hurtling past your house when all you want is a station on the nearby branch-line.

It usually helps to have a new roundabout near your house. It really, really won't to have a 140mph train leaving population centres with a rail-replacement bus.

As I said above, try to get east-west in this country. It'd be far more constructive to try and link Wales to Norwich or Blackpool to Sunderland than London to Birmingham.

 

[NSEFAN]

We've got a rail infrastructure system in place, now, which just needs the focused investment it has sadly lacked for generations. HS2 is not that investment, which is why I hope it is scrapped. Labour would do well to do to follow Darling's advice and end it as soon as they win the election.

Think of HS2 as a relief line for the current WCML. You take the fastest trains and put them on HS2, and the current route is freed up for more local trains and freight.

The reason the new line is high speed and not conventional rail is to avoid making the same mistakes as in the past. If someone like Brunel had built the WCML, it would have been flat, straight and allowed room for expansion. The route was however not built to such future-proofed standards and as a result we are stuck with a heavily used line that cannot be improved without ripping it up and starting again. Tearing it all up is technically possible, however it would cause decades of disruption to the users and likely do great damage the local economy along the route.

I agree with your sentiment that more money should be spent on other lines and project, but I think that should be alongside HS2. This country is very contrary about public transport: we all want good trains but nobody wants to pay for it. A good railway network is going to be expensive no matter how you look at it. Continental Europe has understood this for many years, which is why they pump so much public money into their trains.

 

[PR1Berske]

Commuters (the reason for HS2) can already get from Yorkshire to London in 1 hr 57 minutes, and work on their laptops, emails, SKYPE and what-not, perhaps getting into work just long enough to catch up on Masterchef before going home.

In 20/30 years time, the justification for allowing office workers 15 minutes faster journeys into Euston would look laughable.

We're effectively building The Simpson's "Monorail", and on that basis, I agree with Alistair Darling. Time to scrap HS2 now.

 

[gordonthemoron]

East-West is largely pointless as if there were the demand the trains would be longer (the stations could cope already). The demand is to/from London

 

[jon0844]

Every ministerial announcement has pushed the project as a way to get people into London faster/sooner/earlier/quicker than they can now. So yes, it's a journey time improvement project.

Ministers are probably rather ignorant of the benefits themselves and just thought that faster journey times was the big selling point.

Clearly the ability to have loads more people coming in to London (and the other way) is another huge benefit that is perhaps lost on people. Ditto for journeys along HS2 further up the route when completed, where nobody is coming to or from London.

If you're going to spend upto and possibly including £80bn, then build on what we have (infrastructure in place) than what we don't have (endless amount of countryside).

The width of HS2 is pretty small, and it can be cut away such that it doesn't really stand. Take a Google Earth look around existing railway lines, such as HS1, and you'll barely notice them in the grand scheme of things.

What about the problems widening the WCML to six tracks, or more? Think of the problems (and opposition) associated with that, as well as how you do it on a live railway.

Then try and cost it.

Commuters who could afford HS2 are already working from home, video-conferencing, on-line working and heavens knows what else. There's no justification in hanging this project on their backs when in 20 or 30 years time, office life as we know it would have ended.

Heaven knows what else? I work from home. I've done it now for almost exactly two years. I miss office life, but it works for me - especially now I have a new son.

Most people who work for my company (or have done) seem to work for 2-3 years before leaving to get a job that is office based, even with the need to give up that nice walk to work (from bedroom to home office, perhaps negotiating some busy stairs or a dirty carpet). The fact is, as social creatures, home working is not for everyone.

We do keep in constant touch when working on projects, but otherwise it's easy to become rather isolated.

Sure, it will suit some people - but it's not just that. It's what you actually do too, as not all work can be done with people dotted all over.

I am working on a project for a phone manufacturer and they can talk all day long about how their phones allow video chat and conferencing using services like Skype - and the end of the day, we're having regular meet-ups face to face to discuss the development.

And finally, think about the huge increase in leisure travel. The world is getting smaller. Thanks to the likes of Facebook (and 'heaven knows what else' in the future) we are keeping in touch with people even when they move to the other side of the world. We're also happy to travel beyond the county borders on a regular basis to keep in touch with family and friends.

For HS2 to be unnecessary, with no other upgrade work needed either (the best cost saving) we need to suddenly look at society and how we move about. That would mean looking at new towns like Harlow or Milton Keynes, or the garden cities like Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. These were built with the mindset that people would remain local, with everything they needed in their town.

But now we don't do that. We're happy to get jobs further away and commute, or move way out of London for a nicer home but without giving up London pay. Welwyn Garden City is another town that is now full of people that commute daily to London. Ditto Milton Keynes, and expanding further out every day.

And the same must go for Manchester and other big cities in the north. Jobs in Manchester (e.g. the BBC most recently) will now be on offer to people a lot further away.

 

[PR1Berske]

East-West is largely pointless as if there were the demand the trains would be longer (the stations could cope already). The demand is to/from London

The demand is to/from London *NOW*, for which there are already rapidly declining numbers of 9-5 office workers as the working day changes to more virtual offices and at-home workers.

To hang a £80m shuttle from London to Brum on the backs of 2013 working practices on the hope it all pays off in 2030/2040 is laughable.

If you cared about economic growth, as HS2 cheerleaders so often do, help the small towns and cities of the North and Wales by spending money on THEM, not on a vanity project. It really isn't hard.

 

[si404]

I've changed my mind about HS2, and am gladdened by Alistair Darling sounding exactly like me in his comment in the Times this morning.

My support for HS2 has been switched to outright opposition just by basic research. A £80bn project to make commuter times 20/30 minutes faster is obscene, not least because it's based on the wrong assumption that commuters/workers in 2030/2040 would be using the railways for the same reason as they do now.

Yes that sounds like Darling - a total inability to grasp what the scheme is about, with massively over-exaggerated costs, used to support not building anything.

It'd be far better to scrap HS2 and focus part of the money on where it really matters - Brum to the east coast,

How about a new line that bypasses the XCML through Derby and Sheffield, and the woeful Sheffield - Leeds/ECML links, with stops serving the Derby/Nottingham area, the Sheffield/Rotherham area, and Leeds? A line that takes serious time off of Birmingham - York journeys?

Manchester and Liverpool, cross-Pennine routes.

How about a tunnel under south Manchester that can take the traffic from the south away from Stockport allowing more trains to go to Sheffield? That would be the perfect compliment to all the stuff currently under-construction (Northern hub, electrification and other improvements) and late-stages of planning.

 

[gordonthemoron]

If HS2 is not built, they will have to scrap all commuter & freight services on the WCML to satisfy Inter City demand. That will turn the M1 into a permanent car park

 

[HSTEd]

If you cared about economic growth, as HS2 cheerleaders so often do, help the small towns and cities of the North and Wales by spending money on THEM, not on a vanity project. It really isn't hard.

£40bn, which is what HS2 costs if you don't use accounting tricks to inflate the headline figure, will not actually get you very much in the regions.
It sounds like a lot, but infrastructure is very expensive.

You certainly won't get enough to help some random towns and cities in the North and Wales avoid the inevitable fate which is to steadily lose business to the South East which will always have far superior transport infrastructure (due to higher population densities if nothing else).
These towns can be bought a new future as outlying attachments to London, but only if transport links to them from London are drastically improved.
Hence the hour cut off Manchester journey times and the 40 minutes cut off Birmingham journey times.

Another thing I hate is that the anti HS2 people use the journey time of a single crack express to define the WCML journey time... that journey time is used by a tiny fraction of travellers.
I could run a train non stop on HS2 without even stopping at OOC and generate a really low journey time.... but would I be permitted to use it?

 

[jon0844]

Even Maria Eagle seems to be finally showing some more support than before;

“As London commuters know, overcrowding is getting worse with more and more forced to stand in cramped carriages,” said Labour’s shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle. “Instead of spinning false figures that grossly misrepresent the cost, opponents should say how they would tackle the capacity crunch facing commuters.” - See more at: http://www.cityam.com/article/13768...aim-costs-could-hit-80bn#sthash.hDC830dC.dpuf

Anyway, I'm not sure it's really worth debating this any more with someone who has put this in their signature:

I am anti-HS2. £80bn for a London-Birmingham shuttle bus is obscene

Even the IEA came up with their fictitious cost for more than the line to Birmingham.

 

[PR1Berske]

£40bn, which is what HS2 costs if you don't use accounting tricks to inflate the headline figure, will not actually get you very much in the regions.
It sounds like a lot, but infrastructure is very expensive.

You certainly won't get enough to help some random towns and cities in the North and Wales avoid the inevitable fate which is to steadily lose business to the South East which will always have far superior transport infrastructure (due to higher population densities if nothing else).
These towns can be bought a new future as outlying attachments to London, but only if transport links to them from London are drastically improved.
Hence the hour cut off Manchester journey times and the 40 minutes cut off Birmingham journey times.

Another thing I hate is that the anti HS2 people use the journey time of a single crack express to define the WCML journey time... that journey time is used by a tiny fraction of travellers.
I could run a train non stop on HS2 without even stopping at OOC and generate a really low journey time.... but would I be permitted to use it?

"that journey time is used by a tiny fraction of travellers."

What "tiny fraction" of commuters in 2030/2040 going to travel from Birmingham to London on HS2?

Trying to justify the project on the basis that it might, magnet-like, drag small towns closer to London is obscene. Why should the North suffer just so the suits in London can make it to their massive homes 15 minutes earlier?

 

[Deerfold]

Trying to justify the project on the basis that it might, magnet-like, drag small towns closer to London is obscene. Why should the North suffer just so the suits in London can make it to their massive homes 15 minutes earlier?

The suits? You mean people who work in offices.

I'm from Yorkshire. I can't find a decent job round here so I have one in London. I'm prepared to travel there and then come back and spend much of my money locally. Most people in my situation just leave and don't come back, meaning many of the skills disappear.

Shorten the journey time and more might do what I do.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The demand is to/from London *NOW*, for which there are already rapidly declining numbers of 9-5 office workers as the working day changes to more virtual offices and at-home workers.

Really? So why are the commuter trains into London staying so crowded despite some capacity increases?

 

[jon0844]

I am not aware of rapidly declining numbers of 9-5 workers. In fact, I'm sure it's getting worse because these workers are moving further and further away from their place of work.

I moved out of London ten years ago. When I was working in London shortly after, people thought I was mad for how far I went (Hatfield - 21/26 minutes by train, 30-240 minutes by car!). They were looking at places in zones 2 or 3.

As house prices went up, they were looking to zone 4, 5 and 6 and still finding it hard to find anything but a shoebox.

Now, it's quite obvious that many people are happy to move out beyond the M25 and commute - which is why those peak services are so rammed.

You can lengthen a train. You can perhaps run trains closer together with signalling improvements (but you still have to factor in the increased time for alighting and boarding) but to properly increase capacity, you need new lines.

Well, more to the point, you need to do all of those things.

That is until you can find a foolproof way of getting people to stay at home or only seek jobs locally.

 

[gordonthemoron]

on WCML, to find reasonably priced houses to buy, you really need to look north of Cheddington

 

[PR1Berske]

I am not aware of rapidly declining numbers of 9-5 workers. In fact, I'm sure it's getting worse because these workers are moving further and further away from their place of work.

I moved out of London ten years ago. When I was working in London shortly after, people thought I was mad for how far I went (Hatfield - 21/26 minutes by train, 30-240 minutes by car!). They were looking at places in zones 2 or 3.

As house prices went up, they were looking to zone 4, 5 and 6 and still finding it hard to find anything but a shoebox.

Now, it's quite obvious that many people are happy to move out beyond the M25 and commute - which is why those peak services are so rammed.

You can lengthen a train. You can perhaps run trains closer together with signalling improvements (but you still have to factor in the increased time for alighting and boarding) but to properly increase capacity, you need new lines.

Well, more to the point, you need to do all of those things.

That is until you can find a foolproof way of getting people to stay at home or only seek jobs locally.

There is a difference - and an important one - between "new lines", along which stations are built for passengers, and "HS2", a single stretch of railway missing major towns and cities with millions of potential customers.

If we spent, say, £10 million on just five new stations, that's a guaranteed return within 3 or 4 years tops. Why spend £20bn+ on a 15min saving?

 

[gordonthemoron]

There is a difference - and an important one - between "new lines", along which stations are built for passengers, and "HS2", a single stretch of railway missing major towns and cities with millions of potential customers.

If we spent, say, £10 million on just five new stations, that's a guaranteed return within 3 or 4 years tops. Why spend £20bn+ on a 15min saving?

I am extremely concerned about the current situation on the WCML, it is so close to capacity that if anything goes wrong all hell breaks loose. Virgin expresses take priority and local commuter services go to pot. HS2 taking the majority of the express services so we can have a more reliable railway seems money well spent to me

 

[jon0844]

There is a difference - and an important one - between "new lines", along which stations are built for passengers, and "HS2", a single stretch of railway missing major towns and cities with millions of potential customers.

If we spent, say, £10 million on just five new stations, that's a guaranteed return within 3 or 4 years tops. Why spend £20bn+ on a 15min saving?

Not every station I want to go on is on the ECML. If I'm going to Manchester, I can do it via a number of changes, or go into London and out from Euston.

People along the WCML will have options to either go on slower trains, or go to the nearest HS2 station. People will get used to it, just as the world didn't end when Eurostar moved to St Pancras.

Building new stations is great, but you've not added any new capacity in the process and now you may have fewer paths. You've certainly got slower trains now.

But, wait, if you have a new line for those fast trains that can't be stuck behind the stoppers, then you can now build those new stations and not need to worry so much.

Why do people think HS2 will stop ALL other projects? The money raised will be for this project and not affect other work. That work can, and should, be done too.

In 100 years, you don't think the WCML and ECML lines would still be exactly as they are now?

 

[tbtc]

Somewhere in the HS2 documentation there is a report which says that if extra north-south capacity is needed beyond HS2, the best option would be to build another route out of London up the east side of the country, to join the Leeds route somewhere in the East Midlands, rather than four-tracking the Birmingham route.

That's why I'd leave the East Midlands/ Yorkshire side out of HS2 - I think it could justify its own High Speed line (maybe even linking Cambridge?) - by trying to cram both sides of the Pennines into one scheme, I think it'll be hard to make a case for a further line in a few years time.

HS2 is not the same as Crossrail, linking different parts of London with very close together stations. It is designed to divert away from massive towns and cities, ignore millions of people, and ultimately only link London (already well connected) to Birmingham

You know HS2 will go north of Birmingham?

(and surely any scheme in the UK will "ignore millions of people" - not sure what your alternative is?)

It really, really won't to have a 140mph train leaving population centres with a rail-replacement bus

What are you on about with this "bus" stuff?

You do know HS2 will be a train?

It'd be far more constructive to try and link Wales to Norwich or Blackpool to Sunderland than London to Birmingham.

Are you just listing other places to try to come up with an alternative? What demand is there to get from Blackpool to Sunderland? How does it compare to demand to get from London to Manchester?

The demand is to/from London *NOW*, for which there are already rapidly declining numbers of 9-5 office workers as the working day changes to more virtual offices and at-home workers

I've been using the internet for twenty years (some have been using it for longer than that).

Has demand to get from Manchester/ Leeds/ Birmingham to London (by car/ train) gone up or down in the last two decades?

I'd love to believe in a future of everyone working from home, but the reality is that the future will be much like the present - though with several million more people living in the UK all trying to fit into our transport system.

 

[PR1Berske]

The problem with arguing on the Internet is, there comes a point when nobody advances an inch and we all fall down.

For now, I've said my piece. There are many more credible, cheaper, more effective alternatives to HS2. Work can start now on expanding existing lines, building new stations, ordering new rolling stock. We are too small an island to have this London-Birmingham expressway built when much more necessary projects are in need of funding.

I love the railways and I want them treated properly. Why this 30-40 year experiment needs building I do not know.

I'll return to this thread in a while, it seems that there's not much more to be said at the moment.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Under no circumstances should the WCML have another upgrade, it will render the line unusable for years and cost a fortune with negligible benefits

 

[joeykins82]

An awful lot has been said, you've just not been listening to a word of it. It will not cost £80bn, and nor will it simply operate "a London to Birmingham shuttle bus". If those two points were true then I doubt anyone in their right mind would support the scheme. Parroting the patently untrue "£80bn" and "London to Birmingham shuttle" lines that are being spread by the anti-HS2 lobby groups undermines any legitimate points that you may raise.