Restarting HS2a

[AlexSJW]

You can make an argument that the Y shape was ‘ridiculous’ or ‘a complete joke’ (to quote you). I would even suggest the eastern arm was not as well developed as the western arm. But you are arguing it should have been a trident, one of the arms of which should serve a small target audience which had no prospect of serving markets beyond, unlike Manchester or Leeds.

It’s not just Manchesters reach. The flow passenger numbers don’t lie.

Those in Liverpool's reach get to London by more stations than Manchester - I gave them. Avanti still want an extra train an hour into Liverpool but cannot get it as I believe the power lines are at their limit.

 

[BrianW]

Manchester's reach is greater than Liverpool's, but not by much and not greater to warrant billions being spent on Manchester while Liverpool got near next to nothing. Also Manchester is surrounded by some of the poorest town in the country who are hardly likely to use intercity trains. Liverpool is surrounded by wealthy areas with Southport to the north, Chester to the south and the Wirral over the river.

The original 'Y' was a complete joke.

If anyone was designing a HSR project for the country, in the north of England Liverpool would be first to be pencilled in as it has a huge expanding deep water port needing the extra rail


Read the Lord Hesseltine document I linked to. I gave some cuts from it.

The 'Y' was an otcome of a well-considered exercise to best link Northern cities to London. Lord Heseltine was 'Yesterday's man' long before he co-wrote that report published in 2011- fifteen years ago. Reports are accepted if they conformm with what their intended audience already think. Similarly 'facts' which support a view. I don't see it as helpful to say 'my Region's bigger than yours'. I reiterate that ''the north' is it's own enemy, always infighting.

 

[AlexSJW]

This thread has generated so far 1317 postings since it was stared in July 2024. If all those words were laid together they would stretch ... and what have they produced?? So much 'discussion' about this boundary and that, this 'plan' and that, so much hot air. When all is said and done, much more said than done. Few doubt that investment is required for the benefit of the region, the country and all who live, work or study in it. The questions are how much, when and where? The 'answers' lie in politicians and their advisors, tempered by the occasional election. 'Something must be seen to be planned to be done, in the fulness of time ...', whatever the 'facts'. Meanwhile happy posting all.

Any planning must serve all the conurbations properly. The idea of extending HS2 from Fradley to Hixon then before Stone Manchester trains diverge from the Liverpool, Lanc and Scots trains with upgraded WCML and Stoke lines is an excellent idea that equally serves all with fast services - and enough of them. Liverpool currently cannot even get an extra train per hour.

The 'Y' was an otcome of a well-considered exercise to best link Northern cities to London.

It failed. Northern powerhouse rail was not even in the joke of a design. A design that left off one major conurbation. Thankfully it has gone.

 

[Noddy]

Those in Liverpool's reach get to London by more stations than Manchester - I gave them. Avanti still want an extra train an hour into Liverpool but cannot get it as I believe the power lines are at their limit.

No one in Chester is going to use a Liverpool LS service even if LS was at the end of a direct high speed branch. They would and will continue use their own fast direct service via Crewe.

Just as those in Greater Manchester reach also use many alternative stations to get to London such as Stockport, Wigan, Wilmslow, Macclesfield and Warrington and will continue to do so regardless.

 

[stevieinselby]

Why not?

I'm sure there is a list of constraints but how many of them are fundamental, we could change signalling, rolling stock, banish freight and conflicting trains.

Dwell times for intercity trains at major stations are usually several minutes, because that's how long it takes to unload and load a load of passengers who will often have luggage. Unless you're going to go back to a design like the class 423 where every bay of seats had an external door, not even ⅓ - ⅔ doors and level boarding will allow you to meet the dwell times you would need for that throughput.

 

[Trainbike46]

Why not?

I'm sure there is a list of constraints but how many of them are fundamental, we could change signalling, rolling stock, banish freight and conflicting trains.

For starters, how do people have enough time to board and alight if there is only two minutes between departures from the same platform - that implies very short dwells that simply won't work with IC trains.

The context of the report is also important - this person suggested it would be cheap and easy to operate an IC line at a frequency slightly higher than most metro lines. That is insane.

 

[AlexSJW]

No one in Chester is going to use a Liverpool LS service even if LS was at the end of a direct high speed branch. They would and will continue use their own fast direct service via Crewe.

Those in Greater Manchester reach also use many alternative stations to get to London such as Stockport, Wigan, Wilmslow, Macclesfield and Warrington.

If the Lime St high speed services was the only one to London those in Chester would take the Merseyrail metro going directly to Lime St. They would have no other choice. As it stands Chester may have its own London service using hybrid battery trains the 30 miles to Crewe, then on HS2 track. Hitachi say versions of their trains can reach 160mph, and have battery packs. Excellent for Chester.

 

[Technologist]

You are incorrect. read: REBALANCING BRITAIN: POLICY OR SLOGAN? Liverpool City Region - Building on its Strengths: An independent report.
by The RT Hon the Lord Heseltine and Sir Terry Leahy.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a795748e5274a3864fd62a2/11-1338-rebalancing-britain-liverpool-city-region.pdf

From the document:
Large and specialist employers in Liverpool typically draw a bit wider, from places such as Wigan which is a half hour commute, creating a labour market with around 3 million people.

Depends on how you count it:

These numbers appear to be pretty similar to the ESPON numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPON_metropolitan_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom whereas the ONS numbers of based on continuous urban areas.

List of urban areas in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Criticism of the ESPON is that it appears to be a bit arbitrary, for example Warrington is "in" Liverpool despite the fact that its actually quicker to get to central Manchester than Liverpool. In terms of a travel to work area it's pretty clear that Manchester and Liverpool share a common one.

 

[Krokodil]

''Large and specialist employers in Liverpool typically draw a bit wider, from places such as Wigan which is a half hour commute, creating a labour market with around 3 million people.

Wigan is irrelevant, it will have its own hourly HS2 service to London. Just as it does now.

The open moorland east of Manchester could be a desert or a lake, as few live there

The moorland is roughly 10 miles from Piccadilly. How many people live in the sea which is 10 miles north west of Liverpool?

Why not?

I'm sure there is a list of constraints but how many of them are fundamental, we could change signalling, rolling stock, banish freight and conflicting trains.

Most metros can't even achieve those frequencies! Never mind that long distance passengers come with a lot of luggage and tend to disembark en masse at one station rather than in dribs and drabs at a succession of frequent stops.

while Liverpool got near next to nothing

Liverpool stands to reduce its London journey times by 30 minutes (compared with Manchester's 60). That's not "next to nothing"

Also Manchester is surrounded by some of the poorest town in the country who are hardly likely to use intercity trains.

Sounds like a good opportunity for regional development with improved rail links as a catalyst.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Feb 2026 ==

If the Lime St high speed services was the only one to London those in Chester would take the Merseyrail metro going directly to Lime St. They would have no other choice

No they won't. They can either use the direct service that they already have (journey time 123 minutes) or take a 20 minute shuttle to Crewe, from where they can pick up the Liverpool HS2 service (55 minutes, totalling around 90 minutes including the connection).

 

[AlexSJW]

Wigan is irrelevant,......

Wigan in the original 'Y' plan was not served. The moorland indicates Manchester does not have this massive surrounding serving population. Few live east of the city. As it stands Liverpool and Manchester are on parity to London - how it should be as they are equidistant from London. Hopefully that will get better. Hopefully regional development with better local rail will drag up these poor towns. Faster trains to London, when there are already fast trains, do next to nothing for them

 

[Noddy]

If the Lime St high speed services was the only one to London those in Chester would take the Merseyrail metro going directly to Lime St. They would have no other choice. As it stands Chester may have its own London service using hybrid battery trains the 30 miles to Crewe, then on HS2 track.

But even if Chester didn’t get its own HS2 services at present diesel speeds via the WCML Chester is typically about 2 hours 10 min to London. It typically takes 43 minutes from Chester to Liverpool LS. If you want to save time that means Liverpool LS to London needs to be down to at least 1 hour 15 minutes to allow for a change of train, if not lower. Even if there was a direct HS2 branch line all the way to LS this would be very touch and go. And to save a handful of minutes you would have the hassle of a change of train in Liverpool. So no, even if there are no direct HS2 Chester services the good folk of Chester would just continue to enjoy their direct London services via the WCML and not bother with Liverpool.

 

[JamesT]

Wigan in the original 'Y' plan was not served. The moorland indicates Manchester does not have this massive surrounding serving population. Few live east of the city. As it stands Liverpool and Manchester are on parity to London - how it should be. Hopefully that will get better. Hopefully regional development with better local rail will drag up these poor towns. Faster trains to London, when there are already fast trains, do next to nothing for them

Yes it was. See the map on the front page of https://assets.publishing.service.g...80/high-speed-two-from-concept-to-reality.pdf

 

[AlexSJW]

As it stands those in Chester and South Wirral would use Chester. If Liverpool was on a direct HS2 service taking an hour, I could have seen the Chester service being dropped as there would be no time advantage.

Yes it was. See the map on the front page of https://assets.publishing.service.g...80/high-speed-two-from-concept-to-reality.pdf

That document never said there was to be a HS2 Wigan service at all.

 

[Technologist]

For starters, how do people have enough time to board and alight if there is only two minutes between departures from the same platform - that implies very short dwells that simply won't work with IC trains.

The context of the report is also important - this person suggested it would be cheap and easy to operate an IC line at a frequency slightly higher than most metro lines. That is insane.

Whilst I doubt it would be initially cheap to do with existing operators and techniques metro like frequency is something that rail is going to have to do almost as a default to remain relevant in a most post autonomous vehicle world.

There is no fundamental reason why an intercity train cannot be configured to have a dwell time comparable to a metro train and thus becoming a high speed metro. With BEV technology designing a train to have performance approaching the tractive limit all the way to to greater than 100mph is possible. It would be entirely possible to have an Intercity Metro in the context of the UK's city distances.

 

[Noddy]

Wigan in the original 'Y' plan was not served.

Yes it was:



(Image shows service plan for HS2 including one per hour serving also serving Warrington).

 

[JamesT]

As it stands those in Chester and South Wirral would use Chester. If Liverpool was on a direct HS2 service taking an hour, I could have seen the Chester service being dropped as there would be no time advantage.


That document never said there was to be a HS2 Wigan service at all.

Yes it does. See page 27, which repeats the map from the front page. The legend says that the marker for Wigan, along with Liverpool and Runcorn are “destinations served by HS2 services on existing network”

 

[Noddy]

Yes it does. See page 27, which repeats the map from the front page. The legend says that the marker for Wigan, along with Liverpool and Runcorn are “destinations served by HS2 services on existing network”

I find it absolutely unbelievable how some folk are so blinded by their opinions that they just can’t see basic facts.

 

[Krokodil]

Wigan in the original 'Y' plan was not served.

There was a link to Golborne in the original plan (canned at the same time as Leeds, I think). This enables Anglo-Scottish trains to swoop past Weaver Junction (with its congestion and power supply issues).

The moorland indicates Manchester does not have this massive surrounding serving population.

Nor does Liverpool, given the sea.

As it stands Liverpool and Manchester are on parity to London

How can you continue to say that when a long list of posters have provided comprehensive evidence as to why you're wrong?

Faster trains to London, when there are already fast trains, do next to nothing for them

Better connections to London make Manchester a more attractive place to do business and therefore attract high-value jobs.

If Liverpool was on a direct HS2 service taking an hour, I could have seen the Chester service being dropped as there would be no time advantage.

Even without the direct service, Chester passengers would just catch the shuttle to Crewe. Why would you spend 40 odd minutes going the wrong way when you can spend 20 minutes going the right way and intercept the same train at a later stage of its journey?

Whilst I doubt it would be initially cheap to do with existing operators and techniques metro like frequency is something that rail is going to have to do almost as a default to remain relevant in a most post autonomous vehicle world.

There is no fundamental reason why an intercity train cannot be configured to have a dwell time comparable to a metro train and thus becoming a high speed metro. With BEV technology designing a train to have performance approaching the tractive limit all the way to to greater than 100mph is possible. It would be entirely possible to have an Intercity Metro in the context of the UK's city distances.

Autonomous vehicles are no threat to intercity rail. Nor to urban rail, for that matter, since all cars are equally capable of getting stuck in traffic.

And metro frequencies for intercity trains is a crackpot idea.

 

[Noddy]

You trying to justify, scrapping the barrel, why one average city was given all when an equally sized city not far away got next to nothing. No one has disproven the size of Liverpool and its reach. No one.

HS2 took an evidence based approach and the facts are that:

The number of users of Piccadilly is 190% that of Lime Street.

Piccadilly has 200% more users from London than Lime Street.

Piccadilly has 300% more users from Birmingham than Lime Street.

This shows how much more of an important market Manchester is than Liverpool, and why HS2 targeted it.

 

[Cowley]

Could we, from here, keep things a little more constructive and friendly please?

There’s been some interesting posts, but let’s do what we do well and keep the debate on the right side of healthy.

Thanks

 

[Technologist]

Autonomous vehicles are no threat to intercity rail. Nor to urban rail, for that matter, since all cars are equally capable of getting stuck in traffic.

And metro frequencies for intercity trains is a crackpot idea.

I really should just write a substack post and then just link it.

Some basics, rail is a niche form of transport in basically all rich countries, as an approximation road shifts about 10 times as many passenger and freight km as rail in the UK (740bn KM vs 64bn KM). This means if you wanted to add the equivalent of all rail passenger journeys all you would need to do is put 0.16 more people in the average car. Autonomous cars are to car what cars were to horse carriages. They might have started as horseless carriages but once they were adopted and the infrastructure was built to support them they became something else.

Autonomous vehicles lead to mobility as a service and break the link to personal ownership, the financials for shared cars vs ownership are similar to Netflix vs Video/CD ownership it will happen despite people's current preferences. With shared ownership/mobility as a service; congestion charging as part of the service is pretty easy to implement (and a pretty negligible hassle), the charging would be dynamic and would simply ramp until enough people share to allow the traffic to remain free flowing on any given journey. Given average car occupancy is about 1.4 we don't need to pack people into large vehicles to make traffic free flowing at all times.

Cars are already cheaper than trains per mile and that's with pretty high taxes and the personal ownership model, shared autonomous will be cheaper. Congestion charging will make every journey the same time as the free flowing traffic duration is today. That will mean that a large number of journeys where people take the train to avoid traffic, go drinking, or work/relax while travelling aren't going to be taken. The only saviour is that park and ride becomes even more frictionless.

The train services that are going to be left are ones going either into incredibly dense urban areas at peak times (as we can get 18,000 down to single lane road in 10 seat vehicles at 2 second headways) or where the train is decisively quicker (assuming we don't let autonomous vehicles go quicker on the motorway). This comes to the conclusion that in the long term to stay relevant railways will need to be high frequency, high top speed and high acceleration. Basically every remaining line will need to become a high speed metro.

 

[Krokodil]

The train services that are going to be left are ones going either into incredibly dense urban areas at peak times

I literally said that autonomous vehicles are no threat to urban metros

or where the train is decisively quicker

That's HS2 safe then. Plus a lot of legacy 100+mph lines.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

(as we can get 18,000 down to single lane road in 10 seat vehicles at 2 second headways)

What you have there is a fleet of minibuses.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The 'Y' was an otcome of a well-considered exercise to best link Northern cities to London. Lord Heseltine was 'Yesterday's man' long before he co-wrote that report published in 2011- fifteen years ago. Reports are accepted if they conformm with what their intended audience already think. Similarly 'facts' which support a view. I don't see it as helpful to say 'my Region's bigger than yours'. I reiterate that ''the north' is it's own enemy, always infighting.

The Y always did mean extremely high service levels on the shared section into London that meant e.g Chester couldn’t get direct service on the west and some trains were shared which adds risk.

Personally I would rationalise the services into King’s Cross to use the same rolling stock and then build a TGV style line to Alexandria palace where the 6 tracks start for TGV costs or something close.

That would give you much faster service to Edinburgh and Newcastle as well than HS2.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

Piccadilly has 300% more users from Birmingham than Lime Street.

Some of this because the Birmingham-Piccadilly train is faster. And with HS2 that will be more balanced.

FWIW I do agree Birmingham and Manchester are the top destinations, followed roughly equally by Liverpool and the Mainline destinations from Warrington, followed by Chester and north Wales.

 

[slowroad]

I really should just write a substack post and then just link it.

Some basics, rail is a niche form of transport in basically all rich countries, as an approximation road shifts about 10 times as many passenger and freight km as rail in the UK (740bn KM vs 64bn KM). This means if you wanted to add the equivalent of all rail passenger journeys all you would need to do is put 0.16 more people in the average car. Autonomous cars are to car what cars were to horse carriages. They might have started as horseless carriages but once they were adopted and the infrastructure was built to support them they became something else.

Autonomous vehicles lead to mobility as a service and break the link to personal ownership, the financials for shared cars vs ownership are similar to Netflix vs Video/CD ownership it will happen despite people's current preferences. With shared ownership/mobility as a service; congestion charging as part of the service is pretty easy to implement (and a pretty negligible hassle), the charging would be dynamic and would simply ramp until enough people share to allow the traffic to remain free flowing on any given journey. Given average car occupancy is about 1.4 we don't need to pack people into large vehicles to make traffic free flowing at all times.

Cars are already cheaper than trains per mile and that's with pretty high taxes and the personal ownership model, shared autonomous will be cheaper. Congestion charging will make every journey the same time as the free flowing traffic duration is today. That will mean that a large number of journeys where people take the train to avoid traffic, go drinking, or work/relax while travelling aren't going to be taken. The only saviour is that park and ride becomes even more frictionless.

The train services that are going to be left are ones going either into incredibly dense urban areas at peak times (as we can get 18,000 down to single lane road in 10 seat vehicles at 2 second headways) or where the train is decisively quicker (assuming we don't let autonomous vehicles go quicker on the motorway). This comes to the conclusion that in the long term to stay relevant railways will need to be high frequency, high top speed and high acceleration. Basically every remaining line will need to become a high speed metro.

Very much dependent on battery technology developments, but there is also a non-zero chance that electric short haul aircraft could eat into the inter city market. Not in the next 10 years, but maybe 20.

 

[Noddy]

Some of this because the Birmingham-Piccadilly train is faster. And with HS2 that will be more balanced.

FWIW I do agree Birmingham and Manchester are the top destinations, followed roughly equally by Liverpool and the Mainline destinations from Warrington, followed by Chester and north Wales.

For the full HS2b line it was planned to have 2 tph Birmingham Curzon St to Manchester P but none to Liverpool. Obviously HS2 would have freed up space for improved Birmingham New Street-Liverpool services on the WCML.

Glasgow and Edinburgh come above Liverpool for HS2 destinations via Phase 2.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Very much dependent on battery technology developments, but there is also a non-zero chance that electric short haul aircraft could eat into the inter city market. Not in the next 10 years, but maybe 20.

Electric planes still have all the issues of their fossil fuel powered counterparts in terms of the boarding time and the faff.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

Glasgow and Edinburgh come above Liverpool for HS2 destinations via Phase 2.

Nobody is going to do London-Edinburgh via HS2 phase 2a. It’s not faster than the status quo and you have to work out how to serve the stops north of Crewe plus the freight.

Unless you move the freight to the settle Carlisle then I think it’s basically crayon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

Yes it was:

View attachment 197713

(Image shows service plan for HS2 including one per hour serving also serving Warrington).

So no HS2 London service to Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle. Madness.

And a half hourly fast to Glasgow/Edinburgh when there are 6 intermediate stops being skipped needing intercity service (which at 4 minutes a stop costs you 24 minutes). I doubt it’s achievable even with all the freight moved onto the Settle-Carlisle - and certainly not without.

It’s inconceivable that Preston+Edinburgh+Glasgow gives you enough demand as well so it’s pretty pointless.

 

[Noddy]

Electric planes still have all the issues of their fossil fuel powered counterparts in terms of the boarding time and the faff.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==


Nobody is going to do London-Edinburgh via HS2 phase 2a. It’s not faster than the status quo and you have to work out how to serve the stops north of Crewe plus the freight.

Unless you move the freight to the settle Carlisle then I think it’s basically crayon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==


So no HS2 London service to Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith and Carlisle. Madness.

And a half hourly fast to Glasgow/Edinburgh when there are 6 intermediate stops being skipped needing intercity service (which at 4 minutes a stop costs you 24 minutes). I doubt it’s achievable even with all the freight moved onto the Settle-Carlisle - and certainly not without.

It’s inconceivable that Preston+Edinburgh+Glasgow gives you enough demand as well so it’s pretty pointless.

Let us take a look at the figures for the key stations then.

London Euston to Liverpool LS 920k
London Euston to Glasgow Central 370k
London Euston to Preston 275k
London Euston to Edinburgh Waverley 55k

You will note the number of folk already travelling from Euston to Edinburgh before any section of HS2 is built.

Birmingham NS to Liverpool LS 80k
Birmingham NS to Preston 44k
Birmingham NS to Edinburgh 35k
Birmingham NS to Glasgow Central 20k

So yes Preston+Glasgow+Edinburgh is a smaller market than Liverpool from Euston but it is already larger from Birmingham.

But then we come onto Kings Cross:

London KX to Edinburgh 1.1 million
London KX to Glasgow 13k

This is why the potential market of Preston+Glasgow+Edinburgh is larger. The latter is larger on its own. You say nobody would do London Edinburgh via HS2 Phase 2a but folk are already doing it now via the WCML (I guess via the sleeper but would need to check the figures for that). The full HS2 route as proposed was down 3hrs 40 for Edinburgh. I’m not sure how much time will be lost via losing Golbourne link but with just phase 2a it will still be pretty close. This is why I said that market is bigger and why you invest in that route over any High Speed branch line to Liverpool Lime Street.

 

[Nottingham59]

Nobody is going to do London-Edinburgh via HS2 phase 2a. It’s not faster than the status quo and you have to work out how to serve the stops north of Crewe plus the freight.

If phase 2a gets built in full to the outskirts of Crewe, then London-Edinburgh will be faster via Carlisle.

• Euston-Crewe by HS2 Ph2a = 55mins; Crewe-Edinburgh via Pendolino (9S54 today, 8 stops) = 3h12m. Add ten minute cross platorm interchange at Crewe. Total = 4h17m.
• KGX-Edinburgh by LNER (1S09 today) = 4h30m with seven intermediate stops.

Old Oak Common to Edinburgh will be 10 mins faster, and getting out at Haymarket will save another 7 minutes. OOC-HYM = 4h 00m. You might save more minutes by running HS2 through trains, even if they don't tilt.

Always remember that Edinburgh is west of Carlisle.

 

[Noddy]

I

If phase 2a gets built in full to the outskirts of Crewe, then London-Edinburgh will be faster via Carlisle.

• Euston-Crewe by HS2 Ph2a = 55mins; Crewe-Edinburgh via Pendolino (9S54 today, 8 stops) = 3h12m. Add ten minute cross platorm interchange at Crewe. Total = 4h17m.
• KGX-Edinburgh by LNER (1S09 today) = 4h30m with seven intermediate stops.

Old Oak Common to Edinburgh will be 10 mins faster, and you might save more minutes by running HS2 through trains.

If you optimised the system instead of wasting money on a branch to Liverpool you’d just stay on the same train.

Always remember that Edinburgh is west of Carlisle.

Absolutely!

 

[Trainbike46]

This is why the potential market of Preston+Glasgow+Edinburgh is larger. The latter is larger on its own. You say nobody would do London Edinburgh via HS2 Phase 2a but folk are already doing it now via the WCML (I guess via the sleeper but would need to check the figures for that).

People sometimes travel to Edinburgh via Avanti as it can be cheaper, or to avoid disruption or engineering works on the ECML as well.

If phase 2a gets built in full to the outskirts of Crewe, then London-Edinburgh will be faster via Carlisle.

• Euston-Crewe by HS2 Ph2a = 55mins; Crewe-Edinburgh via Pendolino (9S54 today, 8 stops) = 3h12m. Add ten minute cross platorm interchange at Crewe. Total = 4h17m.
• KGX-Edinburgh by LNER (1S09 today) = 4h30m with seven intermediate stops.

Old Oak Common to Edinburgh will be 10 mins faster, and getting out at Haymarket will save another 7 minutes. OOC-HYM = 4h 00m. You might save more minutes by running HS2 through trains, even if they don't tilt.

Always remember that Edinburgh is west of Carlisle.

The fastest london-Edinburgh trains are 4h20m at present, with only 2 stops, so with phase 2a the route via HS2 would be competitive. Given the demand between London-Edinburgh is likely bigger than currently catered for, offering the HS2 route will make sense.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Feb 2026 ==

If you optimised the system instead of wasting money on a branch to Liverpool you’d just stay on the same train.

Liverpool is important and should be served by HS2 - but it has consistently been included in all HS2 plans, with trains running on HS2 London-Crewe, and then serving both Runcorn and Lime street on the existing network. As someone who regularly travels Liverpool-London (and occasionally Chester-London), I don't understand where this suggestion that Liverpool is being treated unfairly comes from. Remember, when the proposals for 2tph HS2 services to Liverpool were made, Liverpool only had 1tph to london at all.

However, there should obviously be direct HS2 trains to Edinburgh if phase 2A gets built. The proposal of 2tph London-Carlisle 400m trains that split there, with one half heading to Glasgow and the second half heading to Edinburgh is a good use of limited paths north, and improves the london service for both Edinburgh and Glasgow.