Birmingham to London principally needs extra capacity, extra speed not so much. It's the longer distances that benefit more from higher speeds, hence the mention of Manchester and Leeds. Plus, don't forget that Leeds to Manchester and Birmingham are already MUCH slower than Birmingham to London, so these routes would benefit particularly from investment and passenger growth. Why do we need to stimulate growth on the London to Birmingham route when what it really needs is just catering properly for the existing demand?
These intermediate stops weren't intended to be a priority, I only mentioned them in the context that if there was ever spare capacity on a new route, then why not use it. After all, HS1 wasn't designed to benefit Kent, but once it was there, an opportunity was taken to introduce the Javelin services.
The HSUK route doesn’t appear to provide a direct or dedicated high speed line between Manchester/Leeds and Birmingham, so HS2 is far better on this key requirement.
I didn't find the source of that specific image, but I did find a later report from HS2 written in early 2012 that reviewed the choice of routes between London and Birmingham:
The second is that HS2 placed a great emphasis on speed - for all the talk of capacity, HS2 themselves considered speed extremely important./ The report claims that a reduction in speed to 186mph, despite only increasing travel time by four minutes, would result in a reduction of the BCR by 15%:
That's a small part of the story, HSUK was better from London to both. HS2 has failed both too.
I don't think either of these are true. Maybe you have to understand the obsession for Heathrow to unlock that subsequent chain of thoughts. I don't get it either, please share what you find.
How do you reach Edinburgh without running HS2 on the slower lines, at least temporarily. Do you build the entire line at once? Even though the northern half has a poor bcr?
Improving the 1.5-2hr journey time between the midlands and northern cities was a considerable benefit of any high speed network. The scheme was practically sold on the concept of northern powerhouse and rebalancing the economy away from London.
You don't think that the UK has always been divided about EU membership? You mean you believe that the UK was united about EU membership at some point? Care to explain?
I thought I'd answered that? London to Birmingham needed capacity improvement and HSUK benefitted Birmingham with additional capacity, but the high speeds were just a by-product of the new line.
I don't know why Heathrow was so paramount to HS2, That's why I keep asking.
What's the point in introducing Javelin services to places like Milton Keynes? They're not going to improve the journey time much because of the short distance. There won't be much need for capacity to Milton Keynes because HSR line frees up capacity on WCML. It makes far more sense to use an additonal capacity serving more destinations in the north to maximise journey benefits and released capacity on existing lines. Kent is really a special case because there's nowhere else to go on HS1 unless you go into France and that is limited by passport and security restrictions.
HS2 needed political support, and at the time that it was developed (following the 2006 Eddington report), who better to enlist than Boris (and others close to him). He was charismatic, he was the aspiring London Mayor and was really going places at the time. But add to this, he was closely linked to the Heathrow area (later becoming the MP and indeed the PM of course, representing Uxbridge), and he was very keen for Heathrow not to have a third runway. So if HS2 could offer a nearby alternative transport hub taking the pressure off Heathrow, then this was a fabulous selling point for it. Later, when Heathrow was assessed more thoroughly, it was dropped as you say. But by then, the Chiltern route had already had so much commitment that it would be too politically embarrassing to change it. For this reason, maybe, just maybe the studies which later dismissed other routes had an unwritten agenda not to upset the applecart on this, and underline that the Chiltern route really was the best option, but these studies were years afterwards, when they should have been done at the outset.
Yes, interesting and thanks for posting, but I always wondered where were the route optioneering maps that showed London to Leeds, with Birmingham and Manchester running off the main route (not unlike the HSUK routeing). They would of course be served, but without Birmingham dominating the entire project.
Why do you think they would exist? As has been pointed out many times to you, it was the need for more capacity on the London-Birmingham route that created the entire project. HS2 - formed to find a suitable route between London and the West Midlands - would hardly have been doing their job if they suddenly decided "actually, we're going to Leeds! - here's some options for that instead".
The original brief for HS2 was to design a high speed line from London to the West Midlands, with consideration of access to Heathrow Airport, with recommendations on later extensions. Birmingham was baked in from the start.
Thanks for the links. I wish I’d seen your post before spending half an hour finding other similar examples of that diagram…
There were several reports in the lead-up to HS2, but the OP doesn't seem to be able to do their own research and find this. Unfortunately some of it seems to be buried in the National Archives where it would cost money to extract, but with a few minutes searching I found the following:
So the East Coast was clearly considered.
I would draw attention to page 16 which has maps of various options, including one that goes London-Peterborough-Nottingham-Leeds. Page 18 also has forecast passenger increases, with the WCML showing the highest percentage increase.
The first section of the first report, on intermediate stations, is very interesting - it ignores the heavy presence of intermediate stations on the first HSR network, the Shinkansen, and demonstrates just how much HS2 was designed as a complete network with Phase 1 not intended to stand on its own. Perhaps things would have been better if Phase 1 was designed to make sense on its own.
It’s probably one of the main reasons so much of it was cancelled. The phased approach is problematic for getting something completed. In my opinion phase 1 should have been London to Manchester and the Goldbourne link. The eastern leg could have been designated phase 2 or even HS3 rather then having an over ambitious project that was an easy target for cancellation. HS2 was designed to be a complete network crossing the country not a 100 mile long white elephant that can’t even properly release capacity on the WCML.
You (and others) have indeed pointed out things about HS2 many times, but have you given ANY thought to the points I’m making? As I’ve said previously, high speed routes work best for longer distances, London to Birmingham was primarily about capacity, with high speed being a by-product.
I understand the appeal of the HSUK route, especially given the position we've found ourselves in now with HS2 ending up as just Phase 1, but it is important to remember what HS2 was meant to be. However, I am struck by the lack of consideration for Birmingham, the second largest UK city, in the HSUK plans. Given you're kind of going that way anyway, to intentionally skip such a large conurbation as the West Midlands, seems careless. And this is all ignoring the elephant in the room that the original specification was for capacity relief of London-Birmingham.
Perhaps you should re-read my post, which included comment that capacity relief on the WCML would have been provided as part of the scheme I was suggesting. I also commented that Birmingham would have benefitted from faster trains, just a few minutes slower than with HS2. I wasn't ignoring Birmingham, and I don't really think that HSUK was either. But one thing is for sure, Sunak certainly WAS ignoring just about everywhere else.
WCML has 3tph from London to Manchester, plus one to Liverpool for a start, which could all use the new route thus freeing up 4 paths per hour on the existing WCML.