HS2 delayed again?

[Sorcerer]

The problem was the backers of HS2 allowed a lofty, far off, vision to distract them from the work in front of them.

Their proposal might be optimum in a world where the sprawl HS2 system they envisaged was completed in full, but it made no allowance for cancellation partway through.

The project phasing is a complete mess, producing what is now claimed to be a non viable product from the first phase. And the minimum viable product now claimed wasn't even a phase boundary until quite late in the scheme's development (phase 2a was not in the original plan, but was invented later).

HS2 then assumed that its supply of political capital was infinite and that it could design an "optimum" scheme (using its predetermined terms of reference) and it would be able to ram it through no matter the opposition. These assumptions have proven to be catastrophically flawed.

The original proposal was simply unworkable, but HS2 proceeded regardless.

Phase 1 should have been a scheme that could stand alone, and maximise its benefits without assuming tens of bilions of later construction would definitely happen. SNCF didn't compromise the design of LGV Sud-Est to allow LGV Méditerranée to be more efficient. Japan didn't compromise the design of the Tokaido Shinkansen to make the Sanyo Shinkansen more efficient etc etc etc.

I do not think a new trunk line from London to the West MIdlands, which may or may not become the core of a new high speed network, would look anything like this scheme.

I can't really argue with anything you've said, and one of the reasons I've seen cited for HS2's cost overruns was treating the entire thing as a single project instead of a series of smaller ones like we see in France and Japan. Ultimately this is just part of a wider problem we have relating to infrastructure building in the UK, but with any luck we can retrieve something out of the whole debacle. The Elizabeth Line has proven on a smaller scale the value of having a single dedicated express route for fast trains between hubs despite years of delays and cost overruns. It's just unfortunate that those said setbacks are magnified on a larger scale for a larger project.

 

[FMerrymon]

I think a lot of the cost issues with phase 1 are really due to the wrong route being chosen. Going through a rural AONB may have delivered the shortest route but not ultimately the most economic one once all the tunneled sections, new roads are coated in.

Ironically many of the later phases don't have anything like the same level of risk but they're the bits thrown out to pay for phase 1.

I disagree. The Aonb stretches from near Reading to Luton. Going round it would have been an expensive detour and require substantial urban tunneling if for example going via Luton. The route also had other benefits such as rebuilding parts of the line and some passive provision for EWR to reach Aylesbury and allowed it to reuse the old GCR route which provides some of the cheapest stretches.

Its often forgotten that the Northolt tunnel was not originally specified and is nearly as long as the Chiltern tunnel with 4 TBMs required and some challenging conditions. There were big changes elsewhere too such as near Lichfield a viaduct was replace by a deep cutting. The most expensive bits of phase 1 are the innercity approaches and stations, which other countries are able to avoid building in their hs projects or push to separate projects.

The Chilterns has become a bit of a punchbag for the project, yet delivery through that section seems to be going well.

 

[iansergeant]

I can't help but think that the approach was wrong starting in London. Where I live in the Czech Republic, the approach to high sped rail is much more cautious, with work on easier parts near Brno (CZ's second city) starting this year, and with parallel work in Slovakia also starting soon, this leads to Brno to Bratislava in under an hour. https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/ar...-construction-of-high-speed-rail-line-in-2025 . Translating this approach back to HS2, you would build phase 1a first. I would suggest that had this been done, HS2 would still be fully scoped.

 

[FMerrymon]

The project phasing is a complete mess, producing what is now claimed to be a non viable product from the first phase. And the minimum viable product now claimed wasn't even a phase boundary until quite late in the scheme's development (phase 2a was not in the original plan, but was invented later).

Well the MVP is my own opinion, I'm not represtong anyone here. The original plan had just one phase in fact, the 2 phase plan was decided under Philip Hammond. Without reaching Crewe, the purpose of adding capacity to the network is lost, as all will converge on handsacre with no additional paths, that's why phase 2a was brought forward in 2015.

The govt was advised by the Oakervee review that phase 1 or phase 2 alone were not viable, either build it all or not at all. Same govt went ahead with that recommendation, same govt cancelled all of phase 2 3 years later and immediately rushed to sabotage phase 2a. This was not a logical well thought out decision and reportedly the Transport secretary was shocked at the decision to cancel phase 2a, one in which he played no part. I guess no one expected a dishonest journalist with no infrastructure background to become an adviser on such matters.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2025 ==

I can't help but think that the approach was wrong starting in London. Where I live in the Czech Republic, the approach to high sped rail is much more cautious, with work on easier parts near Brno (CZ's second city) starting this year, and with parallel work in Slovakia also starting soon, this leads to Brno to Bratislava in under an hour. https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/ar...-construction-of-high-speed-rail-line-in-2025 . Translating this approach back to HS2, you would build phase 1a first. I would suggest that had this been done, HS2 would still be fully scoped.

Bit like the m6 started off as the Preston bypass. Can imagine lessons can be learnt early.

 

[Noddy]

The sad thing is I think in 60 years 'HS2' will be seen in the same light as the 'Beeching cuts' (I use the word Beeching in the wider sense) of the 1960s. Its done a huge dis-service for rail development in the UK. As well as sucking up huge sums of money it has pretty much meant that no politician, of any party, is going to sign up to a major rail project because of the history for a very long time.

You’ve got this completely the wrong way round. In 60 years the cuts to HS2 will be looked at like the ‘beeching’ cuts, and folk will be saying what were they thinking, why didn’t they build it when they had the chance? Instead I’ve had to wait 60 years for this section to finally open. So much potential, so much wasted time.

 

[The Planner]

I can't help but think that the approach was wrong starting in London. Where I live in the Czech Republic, the approach to high sped rail is much more cautious, with work on easier parts near Brno (CZ's second city) starting this year, and with parallel work in Slovakia also starting soon, this leads to Brno to Bratislava in under an hour. https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/ar...-construction-of-high-speed-rail-line-in-2025 . Translating this approach back to HS2, you would build phase 1a first. I would suggest that had this been done, HS2 would still be fully scoped.

Except you aren't initially releasing any capacity by going north to south, and HS2 wasn't designed to do work in that direction.

 

[jfowkes]

Except you aren't initially releasing any capacity by going north to south, and HS2 wasn't designed to do work in that direction.

But it would actually have got built. Sometimes politics is important. Building the Northern sections first would have mollified the people who thought that HS2 would mainly benefit London. And you'd still get the London bit a few years later.

Instead we're getting a heavily cut back scheme that does exactly what those critics were warning about, providing extra service for London and Birmingham without really benefiting the North.

 

[The Planner]

But it would actually have got built. Sometimes politics is important. Building the Northern sections first would have mollified the people who thought that HS2 would mainly benefit London. And you'd still get the London bit a few years later.

Instead we're getting a heavily cut back scheme that does exactly what those critics were warning about, providing extra service for London and Birmingham without really benefiting the North.

Would it have got built though? I don't see what benefits it actually realises by starting from the north first.

 

[jfowkes]

Would it have got built though? I don't see what benefits it actually realises by starting from the north first.

It's a counterfactual, so I can't know for sure, but I think the need to relieve the WCML, plus the obvious advantage of being able to send trains from the north on a high speed line to London would ensure it got built. And because I do think the "London gets everything" criticism of HS2 has some weight - I do think there would be significant political pressure to built the southern section of the network if the northern section existed.

 

[Sorcerer]

It's a counterfactual, so I can't know for sure, but I think the need to relieve the WCML, plus the obvious advantage of being able to send trains from the north on a high speed line to London would ensure it got built. And because I do think the "London gets everything" criticism of HS2 has some weight - I do think there would be significant political pressure to built the southern section of the network if the northern section existed.

If it were politically and financially feasible to scrap the section into London, I have no doubt the government would've done so by now. At one stage we weren't even sure that it was going to reach Euston, so not even London in what critics call a London-centric project was safe. Building from the North was simply not an option because the capacity relief needs to start from the South. Maybe if they were built at the same time as separate projects it could've worked, but definitely not doing it the other way around.

 

[HSTEd]

I disagree. The Aonb stretches from near Reading to Luton. Going round it would have been an expensive detour and require substantial urban tunneling if for example going via Luton.

Yes, but going via Luton/the M1 corridor also gets you more passengers. It would also have avoided picking an extremely politically expensive fight over the Chiltern AONB.

HS2 had to propose a sprawling network to get enough passengers to fill its trunk line, because it decided to break the cardinal rule of passenger railways and not go where the passengers are.
Now that that sprawling network is not going to happen, the line will be half empty for a very long time, perhaps forever.

High speed rail doesn't have to always take the shortest route from A to B, because it eats up a kilometre every 12 seconds at 300kph.

 

[Class 170101]

This has been done to death in other threads. Not really feasible. Disruption alone would be really scary.

Indeed just look at the discussion of WCML renewals between Preston and Carlisle where a specific bridge over the M6 between J39 and J40 and the disruption that will cause with prssure for diversionjs via the Settle and Carlisle Line and thats just a 14 day closure for that section. Nevermind the diversion of Freight via the ECML from the WCML between England and Scotland.

Are you suggesting the wcml is not full and doesn't have potential for further growth? Speeding up the existing lines doesn't address the situation hs2 was designed to address and would in fact make it worse.

Hs2 doesn't need to go near intermediate population centres to substantially benefit them. Its the primary reason hs2 is being built.

Though clearly near enough centres of population to cause a stink (or several stinks) that have caused incidents like this.

Yes, but going via Luton/the M1 corridor also gets you more passengers. It would also have avoided picking an extremely politically expensive fight over the Chiltern AONB.

From Labour's point of view it probably isn't actually that expensive politically. Few Labour seats in the Chilterns. One of the reasons HS1 goes via Tilbury, few Tory seats affected during construction unlike if it had taken a direct 'straight line' route from Stratford to the Channel Tunnel across Kent 'Garden of England'.

HS2 had to propose a sprawling network to get enough passengers to fill its trunk line, because it decided to break the cardinal rule of passenger railways and not go where the passengers are.
Now that that sprawling network is not going to happen, the line will be half empty for a very long time, perhaps forever.

I don't think the trunk will be empty once it opens betwen Euston and Handsacre as most current WCML (Avanti) services will divert this way. I'd be more concerned in the period where Old Oak is used as the London terminus.

High speed rail doesn't have to always take the shortest route from A to B, because it eats up a kilometre every 12 seconds at 300kph.

Perhaps to people just using it who don't think about it, but journey time does have an economic value even a one minute increase in journey time has an economic cost, in theory. How people behave in reality is a different matter but economics assumes people behave rationally.

 

[HSTEd]

From Labour's point of view it probably isn't actually that expensive politically. Few Labour seats in the Chilterns. One of the reasons HS1 goes via Tilbury, few Tory seats affected during construction unlike if it had taken a direct 'straight line' route from Stratford to the Channel Tunnel across Kent 'Garden of England'.

It is still politically expensive, even if this doesn't manifest as lost byelections.
Fighting protestors still costs time and effort that could be expended elsewhere. The chiltern protests are not just simple NIMBYism after all, lots of people more distant from them still care to some degree.

This is why HS1 went out of its way to avoid controversy, sticking within a few hundred metres of major roads whenever it wasn't in a tunnel.

I don't think the trunk will be empty once it opens betwen Euston and Handsacre as most current WCML (Avanti) services will divert this way. I'd be more concerned in the period where Old Oak is used as the London terminus.

It could take all the current Avanti services and it would still only be half full.
The line is specced for a robust timetable involving eighteen trains per hour, Phase 1 will support ten or so.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

New Civil Engineer brings a little more clarity to the situation.

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...ated-final-cost-continues-to-rise-15-05-2025/

High Speed 2 (HS2) services are now anticipated to start in 2036 at the earliest, with 2039 looking more likely, while the estimated final cost is heading over £100bn.

These were the early assessments of HS2 Ltd CEO Mark Wild in a preliminary report to ministers shortly after he took up the role last year, which has been reported by RAIL magazine following Freedom of Information requests.

This was Marks initial assessment and I would say thats kitchen sinking the project so after hes undertaking his appraisal and reset we will see the dates close up as its plainly inconceivable that there is another 11 years worth of work and if there is then the project might as well be cancelled. The civils works are making good progress with maybe 2 years more should see that element substantially concluded. Railway systems should be able access many parts of the route from 2026.

There is also the indirect impacts from this delay not least the impact on WCML infrastructure and rolling stock as well as the drain on DfTs capital budget which we should be under no illusion is starving the classic network of much needed investment in enhancements outside of TRU.

 

[Stossgebet]

Yes, but going via Luton/the M1 corridor also gets you more passengers. It would also have avoided picking an extremely politically expensive fight over the Chiltern AONB.

HS2 had to propose a sprawling network to get enough passengers to fill its trunk line, because it decided to break the cardinal rule of passenger railways and not go where the passengers are.
Now that that sprawling network is not going to happen, the line will be half empty for a very long time, perhaps forever.

High speed rail doesn't have to always take the shortest route from A to B, because it eats up a kilometre every 12 seconds at 300kph.

On the contrary. I think HS2 does connect where the passengers are, in that it was supposed to be a major connectivity for the west midlands to both the north west and north east, and in building HS2 as planned, it served to relieve all 3 main lines north from London.

If you see a satellite of England at night, with all the cities lit up, you see that the Y shape of HS2 is an almost perfect fit.

 

[HSTEd]

On the contrary. I think HS2 does connect where the passengers are

It eschews the heavily populated corridor occupied by the WCML and the M1 to go off through the Chiltern Hills.

The bypassed section of the WCML has a population north of a million people, even ignoring Coventry.

, in that it was supposed to be a major connectivity for the west midlands to both the north west and north east, and in building HS2 as planned, it served to relieve all 3 main lines north from London.

Again, it onyl achieves this if an enormous, sprawling project is completed.
It made no allowance for the project failing. It functionally demands a decades long blank cheque, where the project must be funded regardless of performance.

A more sensible project could still allow a completed scheme to achieve the bulk of what HS2 purports to do, but without the line being rendered into a boondoggle if delivery fails part way through (as it has done).

 

[Krokodil]

It eschews the heavily populated corridor occupied by the WCML and the M1

You mean that it avoids a route that would have required a lot of expensive property purchases?

The bypassed section of the WCML has a population north of a million people, even ignoring Coventry.

Well it is supposed to be an intercity line, not for stopping at all shacks. Of course by removing more than half a dozen trains per hour from this busy section there will be more room for trains which do stop at all shacks.

 

[Brubulus]

It eschews the heavily populated corridor occupied by the WCML and the M1 to go off through the Chiltern Hills.

The bypassed section of the WCML has a population north of a million people, even ignoring Coventry.


Again, it onyl achieves this if an enormous, sprawling project is completed.
It made no allowance for the project failing. It functionally demands a decades long blank cheque, where the project must be funded regardless of performance.

A more sensible project could still allow a completed scheme to achieve the bulk of what HS2 purports to do, but without the line being rendered into a boondoggle if delivery fails part way through (as it has done).

The good news is we can learn from the mistakes made in phase 1, and make it clear that they won't be repeated in future rail projects. There is no reason why the failure of Phase 1 to control costs means likewise for other high speed projects, which are highly likely to piggyback off the design work for Phase 2 of HS2. HS2 was deliberately designed as something of all or nothing approach, since it's designers knew how fickle politicians are, so decided to effectively force it to completion by design. However phase 1 is nowhere near as useless as some other high speed routes on the continent that are meant to be part of a wider network. However those were substantially cheaper. The only real alternative to the HS2 system was a suburb-suburb line (like every other country in Europe, bar Spain but only to an extent), which would not have had anywhere near the same capacity benefits.

 

[HSTEd]

You mean that it avoids a route that would have required a lot of expensive property purchases?

HS1 built a line through quite densely populated terrain without extensive compulsory purchases of non agricultural land.

Well it is supposed to be an intercity line, not for stopping at all shacks. Of course by removing more than half a dozen trains per hour from this busy section there will be more room for trains which do stop at all shacks.

This is, to some extent, a false dichotomy in the era of high performance multiple units.
A train could, for example, stop at Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby and Coventry and still beat the regular classic line timings to Birmingham.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 May 2025 ==

The good news is we can learn from the mistakes made in phase 1, and make it clear that they won't be repeated in future rail projects. There is no reason why the failure of Phase 1 to control costs means likewise for other high speed projects, which are highly likely to piggyback off the design work for Phase 2 of HS2.

Unfortunately all of the design work for Phase 2 of HS2 is tainted by the same assumptions that have turned Phase 1 into a disaster.
Which means none of it is really usable.

Any new scheme will have to go back to the drawing board and run optimisations from the beginning.

HS2 was deliberately designed as something of all or nothing approach, since it's designers knew how fickle politicians are, so decided to effectively force it to completion by design.

And all they have achieved by this attempt to play politics is ensure that HS2 will remain a half finished white elephant forever.

However phase 1 is nowhere near as useless as some other high speed routes on the continent that are meant to be part of a wider network. However those were substantially cheaper.

Unfortunately they've created a line of relatively little usefulness and an enormous pricetag.

The only real alternative to the HS2 system was a suburb-suburb line (like every other country in Europe, bar Spain but only to an extent), which would not have had anywhere near the same capacity benefits.

The HS1 model was right there!

110km, three intermediate stations and two connections to classic routes.
But ultimately, relitigating any of this is probably pointless. We are now stuck with the scheme we have.

 

[Krokodil]

This is, to some extent, a false dichotomy in the era of high performance multiple units.
A train could, for example, stop at Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby and Coventry and still beat the regular classic line timings to Birmingham.

Well if you want to take the stopper, you go ahead, you might end up with better frequencies than existed before. I'll stick with the intercity train which will get me to London half an hour faster than the current ones do. Preferably with more capacity if someone pulls their finger out on remodelling certain stations.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I disagree. The Aonb stretches from near Reading to Luton. Going round it would have been an expensive detour and require substantial urban tunneling if for example going via Luton. The route also had other benefits such as rebuilding parts of the line and some passive provision for EWR to reach Aylesbury and allowed it to reuse the old GCR route which provides some of the cheapest stretches.

Its often forgotten that the Northolt tunnel was not originally specified and is nearly as long as the Chiltern tunnel with 4 TBMs required and some challenging conditions. There were big changes elsewhere too such as near Lichfield a viaduct was replace by a deep cutting. The most expensive bits of phase 1 are the innercity approaches and stations, which other countries are able to avoid building in their hs projects or push to separate projects.

The Chilterns has become a bit of a punchbag for the project, yet delivery through that section seems to be going well.

HS1 also has an AONB to deal with, and it is parallel not perpendicular and it is geographically constrained by the sea.

The good news is we can learn from the mistakes made in phase 1, and make it clear that they won't be repeated in future rail projects. There is no reason why the failure of Phase 1 to control costs means likewise for other high speed projects, which are highly likely to piggyback off the design work for Phase 2 of HS2. HS2 was deliberately designed as something of all or nothing approach, since its designers knew how fickle politicians are, so decided to effectively force it to completion by design. However phase 1 is nowhere near as useless as some other high speed routes on the continent that are meant to be part of a wider network. However those were substantially cheaper. The only real alternative to the HS2 system was a suburb-suburb line (like every other country in Europe, bar Spain but only to an extent), which would not have had anywhere near the same capacity benefits.

HS1, Spain and Japan built brand new urban approaches and they had far saner costs than HS2 did.

Japan also has reasonable population densities outside its major cities and built a whole series of stops (typically at least one per prefecture to avoid trouble).

If there had been a stop at Calvert plus Aylesbury-Calvert had been upgraded to allow 100mph with 2tph then at least the bottom half would have got meaningful benefits from the scheme.

 

[jfowkes]

If there had been a stop at Calvert plus Aylesbury-Calvert had been upgraded to allow 100mph with 2tph then at least the bottom half would have got meaningful benefits from the scheme.

I don't object to the idea of HS2 having more stops in principle but at least put them where a decent amount of people live.

 

[HSTEd]

Well if you want to take the stopper, you go ahead, you might end up with better frequencies than existed before. I'll stick with the intercity train which will get me to London half an hour faster than the current ones do. Preferably with more capacity if someone pulls their finger out on remodelling certain stations.

The problem is that this dichotomy of "stopper" and "intercity" is only imposed on us by the low performance of the classic railway.

The UK is small, exceptionally small.
LGV Sud Est gets you to Newcastle. LGV Mediterranee gets you to Aviemore. Almost all of the traffic will be concentrated on short journeys by the standards of European railways. HS2's LGV plus station approaches concept is fundamentally unsuitable for this environment.

A high performance stopping train, built on modern infrastructure, can still beat the classic line.
Roughly 170km London-Birmingham via the M1 corridor, five intermediate stops for six jumps total. Each jump averages 28km or so.
Based on performance data available from Japan (on a 300kph railway), the end to end journey (allowing 60 seconds at each intermediate stop) would be around 71 minutes.

This beats the WCML but is slower than HS2s notional journey time. However, our primary goal is supposedly to relieve the classic railway, so ultra fast nominal journey times are less important.
A line that continued north on that basis would still handily beat the classic railway to Manchester and Leeds and essentially match it to York.

Also if all trains stopped all stations, you could just run all 18 trains per hour all-stops along the trunk, as HS1's domestic services do.
Is 71 minutes 18 times an hour much less attractive than 49 minutes 3 times an hour?

 

[Class 170101]

It is still politically expensive, even if this doesn't manifest as lost byelections.
Fighting protestors still costs time and effort that could be expended elsewhere. The chiltern protests are not just simple NIMBYism after all, lots of people more distant from them still care to some degree.

Perhaps but for me it is still mainly NIMBYism lead by the Tory MP from Buckingham who has previously sat on the Transport Select Committee who's name escapes me currently

This is why HS1 went out of its way to avoid controversy, sticking within a few hundred metres of major roads whenever it wasn't in a tunnel.

It was still contoversial but certain areas could have complained all they liked and would have got nowhere because they were not regarded highly enough to be taken seriously. In this case Garden of England vs Tilbury.

It could take all the current Avanti services and it would still only be half full.
The line is specced for a robust timetable involving eighteen trains per hour, Phase 1 will support ten or so.

Mostly because Euston isn't available yet. OOC even if it could support more as a terminus will not be able to disperse the loadings due to Crossrail already being extremely busy on the Western Section relatively to capacity provided on that section, even extending the Paddington terminators probably won't be enough.

 

[Brubulus]

HS1 built a line through quite densely populated terrain without extensive compulsory purchases of non agricultural land.



This is, to some extent, a false dichotomy in the era of high performance multiple units.
A train could, for example, stop at Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby and Coventry and still beat the regular classic line timings to Birmingham.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 May 2025 ==


Unfortunately all of the design work for Phase 2 of HS2 is tainted by the same assumptions that have turned Phase 1 into a disaster.
Which means none of it is really usable.

Any new scheme will have to go back to the drawing board and run optimisations from the beginning.


And all they have achieved by this attempt to play politics is ensure that HS2 will remain a half finished white elephant forever.

Unfortunately they've created a line of relatively little usefulness and an enormous pricetag.

The HS1 model was right there!

110km, three intermediate stations and two connections to classic routes.
But ultimately, relitigating any of this is probably pointless. We are now stuck with the scheme we have.

HS1 was an LGV with UK characteristics. It has a primary purpose of getting Eurostar to the Channel tunnel as quickly as possible, via Stratford. It used dedicated approaches to a purpose built station and managed to do it cheaply(comparatively). HS2 however suffered from a substantially higher London property take, given that Euston has not been deprived of it's suburban services like St Pancras. Alongside this it has been built during a period of near zero growth and high construction inflation. Your proposal for a nationwide Kodama Shinkansen at metro frequency would probably have ended up being more expensive, unless the aim was to service parkway stations far outside of each town. I'd argue HS2 chose the right basic strategy, but attempted to reinvent the wheel far too often in design and construction, while NIMBYism has had its main effect not in terms of increased tunnel length, but the extensive landscaping works, that have massively increased land take and the relative lack of viaducts, which are often comparatively cheap. All of these issues will be mostly resolved in phase 2, given the lower propensity for NIMBYism in the north (certain areas excluded) and the learning curve on the various new techniques used, while HS2 limited should have seen advances in management capabilities, meaning that future phases should see a cost per km more in line with European averages.

 

[HSTEd]

HS1 was an LGV with UK characteristics. It has a primary purpose of getting Eurostar to the Channel tunnel as quickly as possible, via Stratford. It used dedicated approaches to a purpose built station and managed to do it cheaply(comparatively).

Well it is much more like an LGV in the technical sense than in the operational sense.
I don't think there is anywhere on the LGV network that has the density of stations that are found on HS1, which is kind of what I am driving at.

The same technical standards used for LGVs were applied in a significantly different manner to achieve a different result.

HS2 is not really an LGV in the technical sense, but is much more like one in the operational sense, with long runs at high speed through countryside before diverging onto sepearate spurs into urban centres.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Well it is much more like an LGV in the technical sense than in the operational sense.
I don't think there is anywhere on the LGV network that has the density of stations that are found on HS1, which is kind of what I am driving at.

The same technical standards used for LGVs were applied in a significantly different manner to achieve a different result.

HS2 is not really an LGV in the technical sense, but is much more like one in the operational sense, with long runs at high speed through countryside before diverging onto sepearate spurs into urban centres.

The French LGVs have fewer stops is because rural France has a much lower population density than Britain.

There is no question that somewhere as dense as Buckinghamshire would get stops in France.

 

[Krokodil]

Also if all trains stopped all stations, you could just run all 18 trains per hour all-stops along the trunk, as HS1's domestic services do.
Is 71 minutes 18 times an hour much less attractive than 49 minutes 3 times an hour?

Yes, let's stop all of the Anglo-Scots at Bugbrook...

All of those places south of Birmingham have little demand going north, almost all of their traffic is London-bound. This can adequately be serviced by the classic line, particularly once the IC services have been moved elsewhere to reduce congestion. The idea that the IC line should directly duplicate all of the commuter stops is preposterous. Yes, HS1 operates commuter services, but these are just making use of spare capacity not required for international services (which typically run at 2tph and I can't see them ever growing beyond 4tph). HS2 takes on a far greater intercity frequency from day one.

 

[YorkshireBear]

I'd have put one stop between OOC and Birmingham Interchange. But mostly to allow access to this area from the north and vice versa not for those to get to London quicker. It might have helped placate some. I'm thinking like the in the style of the Limburg station on the Köln to Frankfurt High Speed Line. Not sure where but somewhere in the arc, maybe to intersect with EWR. But we are all getting into speculative here I think.

Won't change that we have utterly bungled HS2 as a nation.

 

[FMerrymon]

Yes, but going via Luton/the M1 corridor also gets you more passengers. It would also have avoided picking an extremely politically expensive fight over the Chiltern AONB.

Luton would have anyway seen benefit from the eastern branch of hs2 from the released capacity. Potentially you'd lose more passengers with a stop and longer route reducing the viability of taking South West and south Wales passengers off of cross country to the north.

HS2 had to propose a sprawling network to get enough passengers to fill its trunk line, because it decided to break the cardinal rule of passenger railways and not go where the passengers are.
Now that that sprawling network is not going to happen, the line will be half empty for a very long time, perhaps forever.

345 miles is hardly sprawling and should have been within our capabilities.

It was to directly connect, and provide space for more services in, our most populous cities and regions. I'd suggest thats the very definition of going where the passengers are.

It is still politically expensive, even if this doesn't manifest as lost byelections.
Fighting protestors still costs time and effort that could be expended elsewhere. The chiltern protests are not just simple NIMBYism after all, lots of people more distant from them still care to some degree.

Unavoidable. Hs1 had significant protests. EWR has an anti campaign and they were trying to recruit Chris Packham to their campaign. It's going to cause them some disruption and permanently change their area so its understandable. Roads don't get as much opposition since its easier to understand the benefits to the locals.

This was Marks initial assessment and I would say thats kitchen sinking the project so after hes undertaking his appraisal and reset we will see the dates close up as its plainly inconceivable that there is another 11 years worth of work and if there is then the project might as well be cancelled.

If true then, that was prior to the 66bn (2019 prices) for whole programme cost in the December 2024 6 monthly report.

It eschews the heavily populated corridor occupied by the WCML and the M1 to go off through the Chiltern Hills.

The bypassed section of the WCML has a population north of a million people, even ignoring Coventry.

That's the entire point of hs2. We take the fast trains off to their own tracks, allowing more frequent services and more freight on the existing lines. Opportunities to reopen stations that were closed to allow faster services or build new ones for new settlements too.

Perhaps but for me it is still mainly NIMBYism lead by the Tory MP from Buckingham who has previously sat on the Transport Select Committee who's name escapes me currently

Greg Smith