HS2 will only get as far as Birmingham. The likelihood of massive projects like Phase 2A/B actually occurring is proportional to their distance from London and their cost. Take a look at some of the recent expensive electrification projects
Great Western electrification peters out somewhere in Wales. MML electrification peters out at (now) Market Harborough. HS2 never even seriously considered north of Manchester or York.
Transpennine has already been descoped to only include partial electrification, no W12 freight improvements between east and west ports. Its oop north so why worry!
If these had been anywhere near London, then they would have happened, with NO pairing back - eg Crossrail. With HS2 extensive and expensive HS2 tunnelling (because everything near London is of special scientific interest / beautiful / too near where important constituents or the MP lives) when in Yorkshire they would just use a bulldozer.
Quite simply, if its too far from London to be of interest (excepting bits wholly within Scotland), it ain't likely to happen.
That's not strictly true, Waterloo has been in need of capacity improvements for a long time, yet very little investment had been made to it or the lines serving it, even though it's the largest contributor of money from the rail industry to the government.
For instance if the same amount of subsidy was provided to the SWML as to TPE then it would have paid for Crossrail 2 over the last 10 years. However that would have significantly increased revenue, meaning that the subsidy wouldn't have been as big, or could have even continued to be broadly the same as was paid.
The extra revenue generated by the longer distance services (made possible by the removal of some of the metro services) would likely be significant, especially given that into London the peak is quite significant over the whole 3 hour peak period and there's likely be 8tph (or is it 9tph) with about 700 seats on each. With places like Basingstoke having season tickets costing £4,500 for the year to London.
If all those seats were full due to Basingstoke season tickets that would be £4.5bn over a 60 year period, now although there's running costs to be covered there would be a lot of people making shorter trips and traveling other times of the day to ensure the those were covered.
