HS2 - Birmingham to Manchester scrapped.

[Kompany Car]

stick 'em all together, job done.

That’s not as daft as it sounds. If they would have rolled out full ERTMS level 3 on the network then you can run trains much closer together. But as always they haven’t got there yet even though the tech to do it has been around for 10 yrs plus.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

That’s not as daft as it sounds. If they would have rolled out full ERTMS level 3 on the network then you can run trains much closer together. But as always they haven’t got there yet even though the tech to do it has been around for 10 yrs plus.

there's a surprise.

 

[dickie davies]

HS 1 in Kent and London has been a success.
As I've already stated freight capacity is full on both East and West cost main lines so the demand must be there admittedly probably not to and from Manchester but at the moment the west coast line as far as crewe is still at maximum capacity day and night

That's nearly all commuter passengers of people working in London
It's only made London more accessible

One of the main arguments in favour of Hs2 is that it would increase the wealth of the provinces, when in fact the study of high speed rail in France concluded the opposite

 

[maccieblue]

Wasn't all the money spent on the Castefield curve to connect Victoria and Piccadilly supposed to increase capacity and reduce travelling time from the north east. If so I can't see any improvement

 

[Blootoof]

Let's face it. We are shit at running trains. Look at Japan. All about money with these c@nts.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

Re-open Mayfield Station!

 

[I'm With Stupid]

High speed rail is a complete waste of money unless it's going to go long distances. I know it's got to start somewhere, but what's the point of paying a fortune and then stopping in Birmingham? Never mind Manchester, it should at least go up to Glasgow, otherwise what's the point? If the aim is to give a realistic alternative to flying, then there's no point in only doing it between places that people never fly between anyway. Who's flying from London to Birmingham?

As for overseas trains being better, it's often true but also massively overstated. I once tried to get a train from Barcelona to San Sebastien. What a fucking nightmare. Tried to pre-book, but they don't accept non-Spanish credit cards online. Went to the station, and they said pre-booking was closed because you can only pre-book 2 days in advance, but come back on the day and you can buy them. Turned up on the day and they said they'd sold out. Lovely trains if you can get on one. Still not as bad as going from Loughborough to Blackpool on a weekend though. I think it was about 6 or 7 hours in the end. Google says it's 2 hrs 26 in a car.

 

[Silvercloud]

freight should be moved at night, same with the post airplanes.

freight should be moved at night, same with the post airplanes.

The vast majority of track repairs, infrastructure upgrades/repairs happens at night so as not to impact the running of passenger trains. This is why a number of freight need to be run in the day.

 

[Gogootz]

The airport-city centre connection is planned to go under my house and then the Mersey just down the end of my road, they'd have to tunnel at least 60ft underground to do it.

No chance of it happening imo, hope it gets binned and the money goes towards connecting northern cities.

 

[NeilYoungIsBack]

High speed rail is a complete waste of money unless it's going to go long distances. I know it's got to start somewhere, but what's the point of paying a fortune and then stopping in Birmingham? Never mind Manchester, it should at least go up to Glasgow, otherwise what's the point? If the aim is to give a realistic alternative to flying, then there's no point in only doing it between places that people never fly between anyway. Who's flying from London to Birmingham?

As others have said, the main issue that HS2 addresses is capacity constraints on the WCML. The most capacity-constrained portion of the WCML is between Birmingham and London, so even if HS2 only ever goes as far as the West Midlands it would be a useful thing to have.

However, I doubt there is any substance in the OP's rumour. I'm on the RailUk forum every day and there's nothing on there about it on there (only videos of the tunnel boring machines now operating in the Chilterns).

I suspect the OP has mixed up HS2 with Northern Powerhouse Rail, which I understand is now more likely to amount to an incremental TransPennine Route upgrade between Manchester & Leeds.