Letter: Why do we need HS2?
Thursday 26th January 2012, 8:02AM GMT.
I have followed with interest the arguments for the proposed high-speed train service between Birmingham and London.
In Shropshire, we no longer have a direct service, let alone a high-speed service.
Forgive me for being naive but why is a faster service to the capital necessary. The line is going to cost billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to benefit a small proportion of society, and in addition is going to carve up some of the most beautiful parts of the country (apart from Shropshire).
If rail users need to travel to London to arrive there 35 minutes earlier, surely the answer would be to catch an earlier train, or for the first train from Birmingham to leave 35 minutes earlier.
This would facilitate using the billions saved to be spent on more worthwhile projects supporting health, or education.
Dr KG Bailey
Clunbury
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Dr Bailey seems confused. Is s/he unhappy as a result of the prospect of HS2 being built? Or happy that the infrastructure for this will not carve up Shropshire? The UK has one of the most dated railway infrastructures in the affluent world. We should hop into the 21st century. Shrewsbury stopped the M54 short of the town. Let’s not have Shrewsbury seeking to stop a positive development that can in no way negatively affect it.
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The most basic reason for the new line is not speed but capacity. The existing tracks from Birmingham to London will be full in the early 2020s. This would then limit movement by train and any problems, breakdowns etc would cause total chaos.
The new line will introduce new capacity. Since you have to build a new line, it makes sense to build a high specification line hence the high speed. This will link to hs1 so offering continental links as well as faster domestic trains. By moving the long distance rains off the existing tracks and into the new line it will allow the existing tracks to be used by more freight and more local rains to places like Coventry, Milton Keynes and Watford, all major commuter routes to London and expanding year on year.
In terms of money, building will start in2016/2017 when the recession is hopefully over so the line us not taking money away from other vital services now.
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Short of capacity?
Try more carriages and cut the 50% First Class. We’re not all MP’s.
Cost a lot? Only a few weeks of our “subscriptions” to the EU.
Lets get it in perspective.
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They are bringing more carriages into service this year but that cannot go much further as they will have filled the station platforms. As for first class, I think you will find it is very well used. Obviously they could take the ryanaor approach and rip out all the tables andsqueeze the seats together but that would improve anything would it.
What has the eu subscription got to do with investment in our railways?
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You can’t get goods containers onto a passenger train, no matter how many carriages you add or how many first class ones you reassign.
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Another HS2 letter!
You moan that Shropshire doesn’t have a direct service to London. Now why’s that? There is no spare capacity on the West Coast Mainline from the Midlands down to London. With HS2 there would be and the West Coast would be used for “provincial services”, ie exactly for Shrewsbury-London trains!
Please please can people stop moaning. The costs are not huge – billions spread out over many, many years. This is a worthwhile project that will benefit the country for decades, if not centuries, to come.
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Dr Bailey has a point – but the almost more important reason for HS2 is to get long-distance travel off the over-congested West Coast Main Line so as to free up space for better services to other towns and cities along the corridor.
This has already been demonstrated in the south-east where commuter services using HS1 between the Kent Coast and London have allowed significant improvements to services for other towns and cities.
And, environmentally, to quadruple the amount of freight paths on the WCML and get lorries off the roads by providing better freight connections to the ports and through to Europe.
Would he rather see another motorway, four times as wide and many times more polluting, between London and the Midlands?
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I’ve heard the following arguments *for* HS2:
* The quicker journey time means more trains using the same track in a shorter space of time. Therefore it isn’t so much a time saving as a capacity increase.
* It frees up overstretched capacity on existing lines, e.g. the West Coast main line, which could be used to transport more freight and relieve congestion on roads.
* Compatibility with European high speed lines, i.e. extending the rail link with Europe beyond London.
I understand those arguments and it’s hard to disagree with their logic, but on the whole it’s a balancing act with pros and cons, winners and losers. I think I’ll sit on the fence on that one.
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I can’t help feeling that the logic behind HS2 is somewhat flawed. Studies have shown that similar lines in Europe only tend to benefit the capital where they terminate, to the detriment of other areas.
One of the major flaws with our post-Beeching railway system is that rather than being a true network it more closely resembles the spokes of a wheel, with London as the hub. Consequently travel, be it freight or passenger, between other regions often involves following tortuous and uneconomic routes – just try to travel from Shrewsbury to Norwich.
Surely it would make far more sense to spend the sum of money proposed on upgrading existing lines and, dare I say it, reopening some of the old cross-country links.
Sadly I doubt if this will happen as the main justification for HS2 seems to be getting people in and out of London as quickly as possible.
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If I can get *out* of London 25 minutes quicker then I will consider it money well spent.
If I end up stuck in a traffic jam for an hour because there are no branch lines open when I get to Birmingham, I will be disappointed.
But at least I won’t be in London.
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May i suggest that you don’t go *in* to
London, then you won’t have to get *out*
of the place. “simples”
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Somehow I suspect it will be many, many years before S’bury gets good transport links. It’s been fun for a while but I am off to adventures new.
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Bye then.
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i think spending 33 billion on hs2 will be excellent value. by the time the line is built in 2077, it will have cost 60 billion and lucky passengers from say portmadoc will have shaved 2 minutes off their journey to london after changing at machynleth, shrewsbury and brum. wow there is progress. come back the cambrian railways, then it would be quicker to go via caerdydd
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Thinking about it HS2 would be most beneficial
to our MP’s,well they do travel to London often.Just think 35 minuets time for another free drink in one of Westminster’s many bars
and 35 minuets on the return journey time for one more.Oh and no worries about the expensive
fare,that’s free to.
What’s that i hear you say?
I’m being unfair?
Our good old MP’s are not there just to enrich
themselves? Well maybe not all of them.
But don’t forget that expenses scandal.
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