It's not a vanity project though.
It's to take load of the existing train lines to enable better (more frequent, faster) local services with longer distance services bypassing these lines.
It's to take load of the existing train lines to enable better (more frequent, faster) local services with longer distance services bypassing these lines.
Or it would if they didn't keep cutting bits from it (cough)golborne spur(cough)
I do understand that hs2 is about adding capacity, not speed. And I agree that we need more non-car and non-aviation capacity.
What i disagree with is provisioning that capacity in the form of a single railway line that goes nowhere near almost all of the country.
I described it as a vanity project because politicians (particularly the current pm) like being associated with big, impressive, expensive infrastructure developments. An alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail lines and rolling stock could deliver similar objectives while benefitting more of the country. And by being more distributed, it would be more fault tolerant. But it probably wouldn't create photo ops for politicians in hiviz jackets, or translate into votes.
And i hate the landscape and habitat destruction inherent in building hs2. Too much damage has been done already.
My taxes help pay for this thing. I dont think my scepticism and disgust is uninformed.
Great! Glad we're on the same page!
> An alternative world in which we spent the hs2 budget on improving the capacity and throughput of existing rail lines
Ok we are clearly not on the same page.
I haven't lived there for three decades, but I grew up in Hull. Nobody in Hull is talking about HS2: it's as irrelevant to them as Crossrail. Even if HS2 ever makes it as far as Manchester, its still a two+ hour drive to get the the nearest HS2 interchange - or slightly less on a diesel train via Leeds. (And it probably will still be a diesel in 2035-40.)
And HS2 is similarly irrelevant if you live in Norwich or Exeter or Carlisle or Newcastle. Or pretty much everywhere.
HS2 is an impressive bit of engineering that will be great for extending the commute capacity for London. It does little or nothing for the UK as a whole.