Should there be more stations on HS2?

[MatthewHutton]

I'm sorry, I'm going to be blunt, but this is utter nonsense. Much of the scepticism about HS2 arises from bad actors claiming it’s just for 20 minutes to Birmingham and many more misunderstandings driven by those who do not want it built.

mods note - split from this thread

HS2 Reset: Evidence to Transport Committee - 9 July 2025 "Total overspend on high-speed rail could be as much as 100%"

I see that Mark Wild (CEO of HS2 Ltd) is now saying that the overspend on HS2 phase 1 is likely to be 50% to 100%. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/09/hs2-already-billions-over-budget-with-work-just-over-halfway-done-says-rail-boss HS2 construction contracts priced at £19.5bn have...

www.railforums.co.uk

Extra stations - and learning from the Japanese on train noise - would have helped solve that problem.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I hate this narrative that ‘high speed’ 2 is purely about capacity and nothing else.

Also if it is really for capacity and nothing else why not have half a dozen stops south of Birmingham like the Japanese would do?

 

[swt_passenger]

Also if it is really for capacity and nothing else why not have half a dozen stops south of Birmingham like the Japanese would do?

There aren‘t enough places with decent populations for the amount of stops you want. Discussed often before, and you’re not really helping by flogging yet another dead horse.

 

[MatthewHutton]

There aren‘t enough places with decent populations for the amount of stops you want. Discussed often before, and you’re not really helping by flogging yet another dead horse.

I am sorry, but there are definitely half a dozen places south of Birmingham with enough people living in them that they would have stops in France, Germany, Japan etc.

Coventry, Leamington Spa and the A46, Brackley and the A43, Calvert for East West Rail, Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Amersham, the M25 and Ruislip are all big enough, especially including their hinterlands, for it to be reasonable for them to have stops.

Now sure compromising somewhere between that and where we have landed up is very reasonable - especially as the major destinations aren’t in a line like Japan for example, but still.

 

[mr_jrt]

HS2 doesn't need additional stations as there are already loads of stops on the HS2 slow lines - at Watford, Milton Keynes, et al.

 

[MatthewHutton]

HS2 doesn't need additional stations as there are already loads of stops on the HS2 slow lines - at Watford, Milton Keynes, et al.

If HS2 was going via Milton Keynes this would be a fair point. It isn’t.

As it is a bunch of people who gain no benefit from the project have been inconvenienced by the construction and will also be affected by a couple of dozen trains an hour putting out 90dB of noise (vs a legal limit of 70 in Japan).

Obviously those people are going to object loudly to the project and insist on expensive mitigations etc etc.

 

[JonathanH]

As it is a bunch of people who gain no benefit from the project have been inconvenienced by the construction and will also be affected by a couple of dozen trains an hour putting out 90dB of noise (vs a legal limit of 70 in Japan).

Those people would be even more alarmed with the prospect of new build London dormitory towns and massive car parks in their rural areas if new stations were to be built. It is much better to improve services at the existing stations.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Those people would be even more alarmed with the prospect of new build London dormitory towns and massive car parks in their rural areas if new stations were to be built. It is much better to improve services at the existing stations.

I think people would accept that that was a reasonable price to pay for their houses being worth a hundred thousand more.

 

[mr_jrt]

If HS2 was going via Milton Keynes this would be a fair point. It isn’t.

As it is a bunch of people who gain no benefit from the project have been inconvenienced by the construction and will also be affected by a couple of dozen trains an hour putting out 90dB of noise (vs a legal limit of 70 in Japan).

Obviously those people are going to object loudly to the project and insist on expensive mitigations etc etc.

*sigh*

It's not hard - When you build new fast lines that don't stop, you don't have to thread them through the towns and cites that old (now) slow lines pass though, which do need to stop at them. This in turn frees you to use faster, cheaper alignments to further speed up the new fast lines.

The freed up capacity from not having to mix non-stop and stopping services means you can serve the existing stations far more as you non longer have a mismatch of diagrams. When everything has the same stopping pattern, you can squeeze more paths in as nobody is going to be catching up to the service in front.

...and the passengers going end to end that didn't want those stops anyway don't need to consume capacity passing through them unnecessarily, and can get to their destinations far more quickly.

Would you argue that the good burghers of Wembley don't benefit by virtue of the WCML having separate fast lines, leaving enough capacity to actually stop some services there on the slow and DC lines? (and even more when HS2 opens!)

 

[MatthewHutton]

This in turn frees you to use faster, cheaper alignments to further speed up the new fast lines.

And yet the people who did it my way (i.e everyone else) did it much cheaper.

The freed up capacity from not having to mix non-stop and stopping services

You can have a wave of services that run together followed by a gap. It’s not perfect but it is a compromise that addresses both.

Would you argue that the good burghers of Wembley don't benefit by virtue of the WCML having separate fast lines

On the other hand the time for them to get to Euston to go back on a fast train is pretty short.

 

[SynthD]

The fast, semi fast and stopper services should be different to each other. The slow lines are used by the stopper services. The classic fast lines will be used by the semi fast services. The HS2 lines will be used by the fast services. How do you tell the difference from the fast to semi fast if you add more stops to the fast?

 

[aron2smith]

I can't believe how close it passes to Aylesbury (it needs far more regional connectivity) and yet no stop was ever planned. I think the NIMBYs could've been bought off by having a Buckinghamshire Parkway station. It appears to pass just 4 miles from Buckingham and goes very near Brackley, which could've been useful for Silverstone if combined with a limited stop bus. Also from Google Maps satellite images, didn't realise how close it passed near Leamington Spa and Coventry.

A bit like HS1, why isn't a stop at Purfleet seen as a good idea? Very near to the M25 whilst close enough to London and Kent to be a genuine park and ride station taking pressure off of the Dartford Crossing which severely lacks public transport.

 

[JonathanH]

I think the NIMBYs could've been bought off by having a Buckinghamshire Parkway station.

I think you misunderstand that the NIMBYs don't want any development in their area. Building a station needs roads, car parks, more traffic, more houses.

A bit like HS1, why isn't a stop at Purfleet seen as a good idea?

Hardly anyone lives where HS1 passes through the South Essex area at height, and they already have a train service to London A lot of the land is used for industrial purposes. Given international trains wouldn't stop there, what demand would there be to the Kent stations served by HS1 trains.

More to the point, if the seat on the train to London can be filled from Ashford and East Kent rather than for someone from Purfleet, then that is going to provide a better return on the investment.

 

[Farigiraf]

Just need to look at France's many 'beetroot stations' and you realise this is a bad idea. The most recent LGVs haven't had any of these stations and have been doing OK. They often get very little usage (long drive + high prices often negates the journey time benefit) and just reduce capacity on railways built for their added capacity. With no OAOs to use HS2, a Buckinghamshire parkway station would be lucky to get an hourly service. In the end, the most prominent campaigners (who opposed high speed rail unless they got a station on the line) don't even use the stations nowadays and have quietened on the issue.

The much better solution for that area is P&R facilities at Winslow & good bus connections to northern Buckinghamshire. Plus EWR to Aylesbury.

 

[aron2smith]

I think you misunderstand that the NIMBYs don't want any development in their area. Building a station needs roads, car parks, more traffic, more houses.

Maybe a minority are fully against any and all development but I think infrastructure can win people over if they think they will benefit somehow, a bit like how people argue against housing but really it's about lack of affordable housing and inadequate services, not enough infrastructure to cope etc.

With HS2, appeasing them by putting it in a tunnel was stupid. A Buckinghamshire station would likely win a decent chunk over as suddenly they benefit.

 

[Topological]

Would have liked to have seen a HS2 station somewhere near the A43 (Have not checked whether there is a directly suitable site though). Built on loops, with just Curzon Street to London trains calling.

The Chinese like to build a lot of stations on HS lines, often the stopping train gets overtaken. Then the overtaking train stops at a later one where it gets overtaken by the one it overtook.

The overtaking model is not as good as everything moving at the same speed on the same headways, but there should be plenty of spare paths on HS2 given the failure to build further north.

 

[NCT]

The Chinese model is utter cr@p.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I think you misunderstand that the NIMBYs don't want any development in their area. Building a station needs roads, car parks, more traffic, more houses.

Only the most extreme BANANAs are like that. And ~0 of them aren’t far right.

 

[yoyothehobo]

The japanese stopping shinkansen is absolutely painful to travel on, with some crazy dwell times as you wait for sometimes 3 or 4 fast services to come through. At which point there is no benefit to being on hs2 stopping services.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Just need to look at France's many 'beetroot stations' and you realise this is a bad idea.

A) France has a much much lower population density - perhaps 1/10th of rural Britain.

B) actually they typically get half a million passengers a year which is far from awful. And that’s with France’s ultra low population density and with 1tp2h.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I absolutely think there should have been an M25 Parkway on HS2, as an analogy to Manchester Airport Parkway or whatever that's going to be called if 2B ever happens. It would have been somewhere around Maple Cross I think. We often fail to realise that most journeys are not city to city, but rather suburb to city, because most people live in suburbs - even Old Oak is too far in to be useful for that purpose. The Range Rover and Tesla drivers of Gerrard's Cross, for instance, aren't going to take a Chiltern train into Marylebone and faff about getting to Euston, they'll just pop onto the M40 and drive all the way, whereas if there was an M25 Parkway they might well drive there to pick up the train to head north.

I could also be sold on a Brackley Parkway which would replace some of the role of MKC as a railhead for south Northants, north Oxfordshire and north Buckinghamshire going to Manchester, Scotland etc.

Probably not more than those two.

 

[MatthewHutton]

The japanese stopping shinkansen is absolutely painful to travel on, with some crazy dwell times as you wait for sometimes 3 or 4 fast services to come through. At which point there is no benefit to being on hs2 stopping services.

At least those places get service.

And the Kodama still averages 80mph which is more than cross country or a car.

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Probably not more than those two

There is a decent argument for not more than two stops for sure given the branching etc.

Whether you do M25, A43, A46 or east west rail is to be thought about.

The problem is doing absolutely none of them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The problem is doing absolutely none of them.

I agree. Phase 2B (if it ever happens) recognises Stockport's essential role as a parkway station for wealthy South Manchester and north Cheshire, and replaces it with a station on HS2 at Manchester Airport which realistically has nothing to do with planes and everything to do with a large car park. Often as many if not more board WCML trains at Stockport than Piccadilly. Omitting a London equivalent (Old Oak is too far in for that purpose) is to me a major error.

 

[Topological]

I absolutely think there should have been an M25 Parkway on HS2, as an analogy to Manchester Airport Parkway or whatever that's going to be called if 2B ever happens. It would have been somewhere around Maple Cross I think. We often fail to realise that most journeys are not city to city, but rather suburb to city, because most people live in suburbs - even Old Oak is too far in to be useful for that purpose. The Range Rover and Tesla drivers of Gerrard's Cross, for instance, aren't going to take a Chiltern train into Marylebone and faff about getting to Euston, they'll just pop onto the M40 and drive all the way, whereas if there was an M25 Parkway they might well drive there to pick up the train to head north.

I could also be sold on a Brackley Parkway which would replace some of the role of MKC as a railhead for south Northants, north Oxfordshire and north Buckinghamshire going to Manchester, Scotland etc.

Probably not more than those two.

Quite right.

The number of passengers using Stockport is strong evidence of the power of driving convenience.

Stops would still leave the HS train faster than a non-stop WCML service, and this would not be all services calling.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2025 ==

I agree. Phase 2B (if it ever happens) recognises Stockport's essential role as a parkway station for wealthy South Manchester and north Cheshire, and replaces it with a station on HS2 at Manchester Airport which realistically has nothing to do with planes and everything to do with a large car park. Often as many if not more board WCML trains at Stockport than Piccadilly. Omitting a London equivalent (Old Oak is too far in for that purpose) is to me a major error.

I see this was added at the time I was mentioning Stockport

 

[MatthewHutton]

I agree. Phase 2B (if it ever happens) recognises Stockport's essential role as a parkway station for wealthy South Manchester and north Cheshire, and replaces it with a station on HS2 at Manchester Airport which realistically has nothing to do with planes and everything to do with a large car park. Often as many if not more board WCML trains at Stockport than Piccadilly. Omitting a London equivalent (Old Oak is too far in for that purpose) is to me a major error.

Phase 2a with Lichfield/A38 and Stone/Stoke/Stafford parkway might actually be deliverable for single digit billions as it would benefit local people (and actually Shropshire)

 

[Topological]

Could you still have an A38 station?

The only issue once that far north is that there are fewer suitable "semi-fast" that could call there.

 

[eldomtom2]

If HS2 was built by the Japanese with the same alignment (the Japanese are certainly no strangers to taking a direct route and building stations ten miles from the urban areas they purport to serve, albeit nearly always with conventional line links), I imagine you might see something like the following in terms of intermediate stations (not including those actually planned):

Phase 1:

• Ruislip
• Wendover for Aylesbury OR South Aylesbury/Stoke Mandeville
• Calvert for Bicester
• North Kenilworth for Coventry and Leamington Spa
• Streethay for Lichfield

Phase 2a:

• Stone-Yarfield

Phase 2b West:

• Whatcroft for Northwich and Middlewich OR Lostock Gralam East

Golborne Link:

• Glazebrook West for Warrington
• Kenyon for Newton-le-Willows

Phase 2b East:

• Ashby-de-la-Zouch
• Pinxton for Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Mansfield
• Kirkthorpe for Wakefield and Castleford
• Denaby for Doncaster

You probably wouldn't see every single one of these stations, but I think they'd build at least half of them.

 

[MatthewHutton]

Could you still have an A38 station?

The only issue once that far north is that there are fewer suitable "semi-fast" that could call there.

The Chester train can certainly stop.

The Liverpool services can do two of:
Crewe
Runcorn
Stoke/stone/M6
Lichfield/A38

 

[Topological]

The Chester train can certainly stop.

The Liverpool services can do two of:
Crewe
Runcorn
Stoke/stone/M6
Lichfield/A38

Potentially, though you would only be giving 2 trains per hour.

I was thinking you could add the A38 stop if HS2 only ever reaches Handsacre (I think, Handsacre is west of the A38)

 

[MatthewHutton]

The number of passengers using Stockport is strong evidence of the power of driving convenience.

There’s plenty of strong performing parkway stations as it stands.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Dec 2025 ==

Potentially, though you would only be giving 2 trains per hour.

I was thinking you could add the A38 stop if HS2 only ever reaches Handsacre (I think, Handsacre is west of the A38)

Haddenham and Thame gets 900k with 1tph fast to London. I mean there’s no way that’s awful given it’s in Haddenham which has a population of 5k.

That’s why I say a parkway in Buckinghamshire on HS2 would get 2 million. Double Haddenham and Thame.