For OOC to open before Euston has been the plan for several years now, but not all along, if I remember correctly.
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Reports that HS2 Euston terminus may be delayed/cancelled
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Tezza1978
Member
Simply won't happen in that way. Political dynamite, open goal for the opposition parties to score 5 times and any incoming Labour government, would quickly reinstate the whole route. Would be politically impossible for a Labour govt to only support that minimal route.
And I wouldn't trust the bloody S*n for a start..
Oh I don't know. they might see it as a big vote winner in the north of England, particularly in the areas (seats) which will gain no benefit from HS2 whatsoever.
Only the posters on these boards are rail enthusiasts, not the remainder of the population!
Mikey C
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Phase 2b to Manchester won't be finished until the late 2030s. I assume that the increased timetable on HS2 would need the Euston section to be built, but they could get away with delaying it from the current 2033 date.
Cancelling Manchester would look horrendous, whereas by delaying Euston they can say to the "north" that London and the Southeast are suffering cutbacks as well...
Cancelling Manchester would look horrendous, whereas by delaying Euston they can say to the "north" that London and the Southeast are suffering cutbacks as well...
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
If it's that alone it should be cancelled. The south WCML doesn't need relieving like it did, so we need to go all the way from Euston to Manchester for the big journey time benefits or can the lot.
Facing Back
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True we are all enthusiasts here.
I'm quite active in the business community in the Manchester/Cheshire area - my partner is the networker not me be to be honest - and I have no insight about views in Yorkshire and the North East. But here, it reminds me of Brexit. Generally it is considered a closed issue, it has been debated, a decision has been made so we're getting on with it whether we wanted it or not. A minority, mainly non-travellers in rural areas remain vehemently against it. The ones who want it or are resigned to it fully expect it to go from Manchester to Euston. I haven't heard much comment about it for quite a while now.
I wouldn't be too sure about that, Labour might be secretly hoping HS2 is largely canned, it would save them the bother if the economic situation is as dire as some would have us believe. The present government would of course take the blame but it could leave Labour thinking thanks, you've done us a big favour!
ashkeba
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The present government will delay it by cutting budgets but not announce any delay. That will be the honour of the next government, when it becomes clear that speeding back up to meet the target would be massive expense.
HSTEd
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There is no political capital in supporting HS2.
The project has turned into one disaster after another, the best thing for the government would be to hope everyone simply forgot about it.
On the other hand, if you ran it like Fenchurch Street you might be able to run the full 17tph out of Old Oak Common.... you would rapidly overload Crossrail to death if you tried though.
Assuming there are no loops and the Curzon Street triangle is single track as well, what frequency could you run between Old Oak Common and Piccadilly?
Similarly to when Euston was reduced from 11 platforms to 10, the big potential here is that there has to be a rethink of the service pattern and some trains from HS2 simply HAVE to be sent straight onto HS1 and through the tunnel into Europe because there won’t physically be the capacity in London, not that I want to go there anyway compared to European destinations.
If the 10 platform Euston is cancelled entirely, the chances are that when it is inevitably resurrected in a few years with double the budget, it will be of the 11 platform variety, leading to a better outcome. Likewise the Eastern leg can be routed through Sheffield, however the Golborne Link is more important than Euston. The area north of Golborne is too densely populated to find any other alignment to join the WCML further north, so that is where we need to be worried about the descoping.
ScottGallagher
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If Labour are elected in 2024 or even debates up until then there's the awkward issue of Euston being in Kier Starmers constituency !
Practically what it means is slower journeys, which rapidly eats into the whole point of using HS2 in the first place. For example if I'm travelling to Cambridge, from Euston I can just walk down the road to Kings Cross where the fast trains to cambridge leave from . From Old oak common I have to take the relatively slow Elizibeth line. Then I either have to take a slower train to Cambridge from Farringdon or Liverpool Street or change again to reach Kings cross.
Of course they may well make the legacy WCML services slower when they bring in HS2 meaning the balance still tips in HS2's favour, or maybe the balance will tip in favour of a route that avoids London completely, time will tell.
AlbertBeale
Established Member
Like most people for miles around, he was - initially at least - critical of the mass destruction at Euston. Though - as over most things - he's reined himself in a bit more recently. One (of the many) reasons for the unpopularity of the Labour-run council in the borough is that they didn't fight the Euston plans long enough and hard enough.
Scrapping any part of HS2 phases 1 or 2a would worsen the OBR economic forecasts. OBR fiscal multipliers for every £1 of CDEL (govt capital expenditure) create £1.90 of further GDP over 4 years in the forecasts. This is separate from the benefits in a cost-benefit analysis. The same £1 CDEL generates 60p of tax receipts (on top of those directly associated with the investment).
Fiscal multipliers are a branch of economics largely ignored by politicians since 1979. They have preferred to focus on the short-term political capital from tax cutting headlines, and look at the mess that’s got us into - highest tax burden since WWII.
HS2 does not impact government borrowing- it’s 0.5 percent of total government expenditure (less the additional tax receipts).
Contrary to The Sun headline, there will be positive HS2 announcements soon.
Ditching the eastern leg had no impact since the forecasts are over 5 years. It was a political decision.
You can’t switch CDEL to schools or hospitals as they are not shovel-ready.
Fiscal multipliers are a branch of economics largely ignored by politicians since 1979. They have preferred to focus on the short-term political capital from tax cutting headlines, and look at the mess that’s got us into - highest tax burden since WWII.
HS2 does not impact government borrowing- it’s 0.5 percent of total government expenditure (less the additional tax receipts).
Contrary to The Sun headline, there will be positive HS2 announcements soon.
Ditching the eastern leg had no impact since the forecasts are over 5 years. It was a political decision.
You can’t switch CDEL to schools or hospitals as they are not shovel-ready.
No, political suicide not to go to the north (especially after the Leeds part has beeed kicked into very long grass) and on this mornings news it has been said it WILL go to Manchester
daodao
Established Member
It would be disastrous for HS2 to terminate permanently at OOC. If money is tight, proposing that HS2b would still be built from Crewe to Manchester, even if the Euston-OOC is shelved, is very short-sighted; only a handful of HS2 trains per hour are proposed to serve the segment north of Crewe. It would adversely affect very many more potential passengers and significantly downgrade HS2's usefulness, potentially jeopardising the overall success of the whole HS2 project, and its primary aim of improving connectivity from London to the West Midlands and to North-West England.
The current published journey time from Euston to Birmingham by fast trains is 76 minutes compared to 45 minutes by the planned HS2 service. The planned HS2 journey time from OOC to Birmingham is 38 minutes. However, one would need to add 25-30 minutes to travel from central London (say Tottenham Court Road) to OOC and then change trains and transfer to the HS2 train, making the overall journey time from central London to Birmingham about 63-68 minutes, which is not a significant saving over the current journey time of 76 minutes.
class ep-09
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Nor there are 400m platforms at Paddington to accommodate HS2 trains .There's no tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston yet, either!
Listening to reports just now on the 7.00 news it seems it will be "delayed" rather than scrapped
Isn`t HS2 about capacity, speed being secondary ?
zwk500
Veteran Member
To the railway, yes. However politically its become about journey times.
chris_in_salop
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Hardly 'political dynamite'. The key voters that Labour needs for it to win the election rarely go anywhere near the railways, except when their cars are held up at level crossings.
fishwomp
Established Member
Wouldn't most of Hampshire be better using XC?
Basingstoke to Waterloo - 45 mins, Waterloo - Euston - 30 mins
(wait for connection, platform walk etc) 20 mins
Euston - Birmingham - 45 mins
That's a good 2h 20 mins.
XC does that with no changes in 2h 10., today..
More corruption no doubt. Large central London brownfield site for sale due to being no longer needed. I'm sure the lucky buyer, whichever property developer it will turn out to be, will have an oven ready plan already in place for the nicely cleared site.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Lord Berkeley has just been banging on on R4 Today about his long-standing view that HS2 money should instead be spent on upgrading existing lines.
That might have been relevant before HS2 construction started, but not when Phase 1/2a are approved and the countryside is being ripped apart to build it.
If HS2 is permanently curtailed to Old Oak Common, then people from Birmingham, Manchester and other destinations won't use it.
I live on the Western outskirts of Birmingham, and currently if I want to take the train to London I get a bus and then the tram from Edgbaston Village, alighting at New Street station. With HS2, it would be a further 10 minutes on the tram to Curzon Street.
I would not be inclined to go past a station that has direct trains to the centre of London, in order to go to another station that doesn't have direct trains to the centre of London, particularly if, as I suspect, fares on HS2 are substantially higher.
The other thing about Birmingham Curzon Street is that you can see the site of the station from the existing line from London as it approaches Birmingham New Street. It would be somewhat ironic if you were to stand in a brand new station waiting for your train to the outskirts of London, watching trains go by that are going to, er, the centre of London.
I think would be even worse at Manchester Piccadilly. Why would anyone want to get a train to Old Oak Common when there are direct trains to Euston every 20 minutes?
Some people say that the Elizabeth Line at Old Oak Common would be convenient for onward travel to destinations in Central London. Whilst that may be the case, we already have a thread on these forums saying that Elizabeth Line trains are busy at peak times. I don't think people from stations in between Reading and Paddington, plus those from Heathrow, are going to be pleased if hordes of people from Birmingham and Manchester are going to try and pile on to an already busy train at Old Oak Common.
Talking of the Elizabeth Line, I can remember when Crossrail (as it then was) was cancelled, because the recession of the early 1990s meant that the line was "..no longer needed..". Then subsequent economic growth meant that the tube could no longer cope, and the Elizabeth Line became more of a necessity.
Similarly with Docklands and Canary Wharf. The Docklands Light Railway was originally conceived as a cut price alternative to extending the Jubilee Line. The DLR soon became unable to cope with passenger numbers, and so the Jubilee Line extension had to be built, as well as the expansion and extension of the DLR.
So I believe that HS2 will eventually built all the way to Euston. If Sir Keir Starmer is the Prime Minister after the next election, as seems likely at the moment, he would be responsible for confirming a decision to cancel a major development project in his constituency.
What would then happen to the big hole in the ground at Euston? It could be sold off to developers, but who would want to build there if, in 20 years time, there is the risk that the government of the day says, er, we're going to extend HS2 to Euston so we need to knock your development down.
Wynd
Member
If true, this is insane. Fundamentally, HS2 is about getting in to Central London. Undermine that, and you undermine the whole project.
Penny wise and pound fooling doesn't even come close.
This is yet another example of why HMT are not fit to be running both the fiscal and the development roles for the economy. The former isn't ideal, owing largely to circumstances, but the latter is woeful owing to endless poor Green Book based decisions.
You don't cut your way to economic growth.
Penny wise and pound fooling doesn't even come close.
This is yet another example of why HMT are not fit to be running both the fiscal and the development roles for the economy. The former isn't ideal, owing largely to circumstances, but the latter is woeful owing to endless poor Green Book based decisions.
You don't cut your way to economic growth.
HS2 is really descending into a total farce. High speed trains really shouldn't be beyond the capability of the UK to deliver and the inability to create a high speed backbone between London and the north should be a national embarrassment. The self-serving political interests trumping broader national benefits, e.g. the cancellation of the Golborne Link and now the link to central London, are ruining what should be a long overdue upgrade to the ancient railway infrastructure.
mike57
Established Member
Normally I take what is written in the Sun with a pinch of salt, but this has all the hallmarks of a deliberate 'leak' to soften people up for further cutbacks. May be more of a put on hold than a complete abandonment?
Given the current finacial climate maybe its a case of stop at Birmingham or stop at Old Oak Common. I suspect HS2 only survived the recent round of cuts because it was too far advanced to cancel. Had things been a bit less advance there is no doubt in my mind at the very least it would have been 'postponed'
Given the current finacial climate maybe its a case of stop at Birmingham or stop at Old Oak Common. I suspect HS2 only survived the recent round of cuts because it was too far advanced to cancel. Had things been a bit less advance there is no doubt in my mind at the very least it would have been 'postponed'
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
But there won't be 3tph via the classic line.
The trains will run via HS2, leaving possibly one train via Rugby, on a slower schedule (more stops).
Same for Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere.
There most certainly isn't capacity on the existing railway to run trains from Manchester to both Euston and Old Oak Common at a 20 minute frequency.
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