The massive cost and intrusion of HS2 is totally unnecessary. It has been marketed as various claims and one wonders if all are necessary or true. For example:
1. The claim that it would challenge inland flights but avoids linking directly into Heathrow to shave a mere 7 minutes off end to end London Capital timings.
2. The claims of High Speed, when the 127 miles from Paris-Lille is considered a shorter distance 'minimal' for operations efficiency and shorter gaps one might suggest means less efficiency with high speed acceleration but 3+ mile distance braking to stop and that means all trains must keep those head-ways at any time. Unlikely to go that speed in urban areas when grinding to a stop and that is why no station between Old Oak Common and Solihull is wanted by the promoters which translates to all brown field development in the wake of the new railway (exactly the same for road schemes) will be driven to use existing road and rail links which it claims are at capacity.
3. If it draws the masses to commute via it to London, will an equal London audience wish to commute contra and at less income rates to the regions on the back of it or it is a one-way brain drain from those outlying regions fuelling overheating more of the London and wider Southeast regions? West London/South Bucks/Chiltern areas is already congested and everything moves slowly, to compound that and overload Crossrail is a nightmare to unfold before our eyes.
A better way surely is to:
1. Reduce costs by making it a conventional railway not High Speed, 125 mph is a totally respectable speed and freight needs to be less anyway in many cases. HS2 is not geared for mixed running, when if capacity is the name of the game, we do need more freight by rail and capacity creation. The idea that if we get HS2 a default capacity opens up, given other growth patterns and demand over the next 10 years, those existing lines will be restricted and besides, it is orbital links between Tonbridge-Heathrow and the Chiltern Main Line/East-West Rail Oxbridge Arc that is radially needed and that agenda is missing in joined-up planning and designs currently. Terminal capacity and baying is limited so that puts a cap on growth without more M25 rail equivalent links being built. HS2 has few if any answers, it cannot access Crossrail with its trains as Crossrail is not continental loading gauge.
2. If we accept a conventional rail link into Calvert from both Birmingham and Leicester via Narborough-Rugby-Brackley-Calvert with links to the Oxford line and Heathrow via Aylesbury-Princes Risborough (Clavert-Grendon could be new built for relief purposes too), you have Southampton/Bristol-West Coast Rugby and East Midlands via Leicester and/or the Knighton Junction-Burton-Derby lines. You could bolt on a conventional new link between Calvert and Solihull and still have more station capacity at Birmingham via Curzon Street new build, but save the Chilterns, water courses, bio-diversity and many lands for plethora of other uses. You could have a station west side of Southam linking with the Leamington and Stratford upon Avon lines.
3. The Great Central corridor being re-railed would serve the East Midlands from the south and west which HS2 fails to provide. Realignments and new designs are needed to:
a. get around built Brackley
b. overcome other smaller blockages including the Catesby Tunnel
c. have a Park and Ride Station south of Willoughby and a new deviation via Barby to link with the West Coast Main Lines in the vicinity of where they split, this via bestriding the Canal corridor.
d. At Rugby more interlinking options for passenger and freight could be had. Including a direct link into DIRFT which is expanding and a curve into Northampton.
e. North of Rugby you could either do all 3 or just 2 of these options such as rebuilding the old Midland route to Leicester to meet with the new built Great Central on viaduct over Rugby old route and west of M1 serve Lutterworth with a Park and Ride before linking on to the existing Nuneaton-Leicester lines as previously mentioned.
In short the following needs to be done:
a. agree the principle and support protection policies for the remaining Great Central corridor and that does not need to be dormant, but rather generous width lands as 'green corridors' which could extend around urban cordons and new stretches to keep re-railing options open and used interim as pedestrian, cycle, bridleway cum leisure corridors which could be edited and slewed in the event of a new railway being restored/built.
b. contact other councils between Bucks and Leicestershire and quangos like English Economic Heartlands and pool resources to commission a feasibility study to examine what can be done and if positive including business cases both as a through route for passenger and freight from plethora to plethora (with stations and information) as well as a corridor in its own right with the 'local' apparent for footfall and spend minus cars and land use parking allocation issues in urban areas for example.
Once the study is done and shows the way ahead hopefully - Bucks apparently did costings on the Great Central a while back - but needs other councils to work together, not discard the Great Central as 'gone' when for a variety of practical, social, economic and environmental reasons local, regional and national we need this corridor re-railed and a new Park and Ride Station on the Great Central south of Willoughby adjacent to the A425 and a new rail link off the Leamington Line to link with the Northampton Loop Line via Southam, Great Central and Daventry, none of which have ready access to rail and have growing populations not apparent 50 years+ years ago when the line was shut to cut 'duplicate links' when now, we desperately need 'more capacity'.
I attach a basic report outlining something of the vision and a map which seeks to show ideas for study, rather than forensic crystal ball outcomes!
Pictures below kindly given by Mr Steve Byatt. 2018
