HS2 and the Grand Union

[Wanderer Vagabond]

6 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

The new HS2 station will not be on Curzon Street. It will occupy the site of the former Curzon St station and incorporate the listed former station building on the periphery of the site.

 

It will however be considerably bigger than the original station with its main entrance adjacent to that of Moor St station on Moor Street Queensway.

 

There are - or at least were - collateral schemes to expand Moor St station to accommodate trains from the NE-SW corridor using new chord lines linking to the Camp Hill railway thus providing increased connections to HS2 and alleviate over crowding at New St which doesn’t entirely get resolved by HS2.

 

It’s also a short walk from Moor St (and therefore also from the new HS2 station) to New St and a regular connection used by thousands of people every day. Including quite often me.

Is there anything left of the former Curzon Street Station? Last time we passed the site coming into New Street, the whole lot looked levelled.

Doesn't alter the fact that a lot of the time 'saved' on the trip from London will be wasted walking to New Street. Yes, the original project was OK in that you'd be directly connected to the northern part of HS2 at Curzon Street, but without that the project becomes pointless. After the initial novelty when the project opens, who is going to bother to walk to Curzon Street to travel to somewhere that isn't in the centre of London (Old Oak Common) when they can catch a train direct from New Street to Euston in an hour an 20 minutes at the moment. It doesn't make any sense unless they deliberately cut the number of trains on that line thereby forcing people to use the new track at greater cost.

 

As I've said before, this would never have arisen if the project had been started in the area of the country that actually needed better rail infrastructure, the North, rather than the area that is already flush with rail infrastructure, London and the South East since it would never have been cancelled without reaching London.

[Captain Pegg]

4 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Is there anything left of the former Curzon Street Station? Last time we passed the site coming into New Street, the whole lot looked levelled.

Doesn't alter the fact that a lot of the time 'saved' on the trip from London will be wasted walking to New Street. Yes, the original project was OK in that you'd be directly connected to the northern part of HS2 at Curzon Street, but without that the project becomes pointless. After the initial novelty when the project opens, who is going to bother to walk to Curzon Street to travel to somewhere that isn't in the centre of London (Old Oak Common) when they can catch a train direct from New Street to Euston in an hour an 20 minutes at the moment. It doesn't make any sense unless they deliberately cut the number of trains on that line thereby forcing people to use the new track at greater cost.

 

As I've said before, this would never have arisen if the project had been started in the area of the country that actually needed better rail infrastructure, the North, rather than the area that is already flush with rail infrastructure, London and the South East since it would never have been cancelled without reaching London.

Just the original station building which is top centre of that image. I think that may have been the case for the past 150 years though.

 

The case for building the railway north to south simply didn’t stack up as well as south to north. Not least because trains to all major northern cities benefited from the southern section; and most still do even with the curtailed scope.

 

Once HS2 opens there won’t be a 1 hour 20 minute train service from New St to Euston via the old route. That relies on a tilting train and they are the railway’s equivalent of Concorde.

 

While I’m very much of the opinion that the only realistic options should have been Central London - Birmingham - Manchester (- Leeds) or nothing at all I think your overall view of the project is way wide of the mark.

 

There is plenty of evidence in the UK and Europe of how high speed rail and interconnected urban networks operate and are used. There’s a reason all major European economies - and some not so major ones - have been building high speed rail infrastructure for half a century and continue to do so.

 

The concept is sound, the problem is the execution both in time and scope - it’s at least 30 years too late and too short.

 

 

Edited February 24 by Captain Pegg

[JungleJames]

9 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

How well do you know Birmingham? The fact is that Curzon Street is over a kilometre (by road, not as the crow flies) from New Street Station so let us say a 15 minute walk, and all that you've saved in time from London on the new line is supposedly 20 minutes, which you are going to pretty much lose walking to New Street to catch your connection to go further north. The 'gains' are entirely illusory.

Hold on. Are we looking at how close Curzon St is to the centre of Birmingham, or how close it is to another station that some people may or may not then head to afterwards? You are changing the goal posts just to try and make sure you win.

 

The way you are digging holes, nothing would ever get done. At the end of the day, it will suit some people, and not suit others.

 

Anyway, a lot of people going further north would not change at Birmingham. They would get a train that bypassed Birmingham and joined up with the WCML a little further north.

So your argument doesn't stack up.

 

At the end of the day, your argument could be used by everybody, but using different goal posts.

 

They could build the new station right next to New St, then someone will come along and claim they need to transfer to Moor St so as to get to Snow Hill. "Oh, HS2 is clearly a waste of time, as it would be just as quick for me to get the Chiltern line direct to Snow Hill.

 

So the new station goes back to Curzon St, and round and round and round.

I myself think HS2 is clearly a waste of money as the southern terminus should be St Pancras or Charing Cross. It is clearly no use to anybody unless it goes to Charing Cross.

 

Curzon St is as good as in the centre of Brum.

10 hours ago, Momac said:

The railways waste money on an immense  scale.

In this respect the train operating companies are just as bad if not worse than the former nationalised arrangements.

 

As far as HS2 is concerned I  may not travel on it as quite simply I  live  near the East Coast mainline  . But as  said there may be other benefits due to other routes being under reduced demand.

 

The way of privatisation has led to a lot of waste. Change of franchise- ooh, must repaint all the trains, give everyone new uniform, and stick new signs everywhere. This should hopefully reduce now.

 

I know there are other wastes as well. Some apparently politically motivated now the government is so involved.

 

Network Rail I would think are the biggest waster though. 

 

But yes, everybody can be guilty. The private operators are probably quite lean though. Although saying that, the way of privatisation means in the long term there are large amounts of wasted money. Although oddly, love them or loath them, Great Western seem to look longer term and have not gone down the route of farming out maintenance.

 

But, for numerous reasons, and with numerous people at fault, money is wasted, short term and long term. I'd guess a lot can be traced back to the government rather easily though. Even if train maintenance you blame on the operator, although it is really because of privatisation.

[Graham Davis]

8 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Being of considerable age with two terminal brain tumours; I don't think that I would be a candidate for employment anymore!

But I could still drive a train though, cushy job that. Not colour blind, can sit down all day, short working hours, like to be alone, not dealing with the general public, pension, uniform, free travel, no physical exertion, overpaid, no outside working, piece of cake.

And that proves you know beggar all about train driving.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

16 minutes ago, JungleJames said:

Hold on. Are we looking at how close Curzon St is to the centre of Birmingham, or how close it is to another station that some people may or may not then head to afterwards? You are changing the goal posts just to try and make sure you win.

 

The way you are digging holes, nothing would ever get done. At the end of the day, it will suit some people, and not suit others.

 

Anyway, a lot of people going further north would not change at Birmingham. They would get a train that bypassed Birmingham and joined up with the WCML a little further north.

So your argument doesn't stack up.

 

At the end of the day, your argument could be used by everybody, but using different goal posts.

 

They could build the new station right next to New St, then someone will come along and claim they need to transfer to Moor St so as to get to Snow Hill. "Oh, HS2 is clearly a waste of time, as it would be just as quick for me to get the Chiltern line direct to Snow Hill.

 

So the new station goes back to Curzon St, and round and round and round.

I myself think HS2 is clearly a waste of money as the southern terminus should be St Pancras or Charing Cross. It is clearly no use to anybody unless it goes to Charing Cross.

 

Curzon St is as good as in the centre of Brum.

It would seem to me that your argument fails to stack up since those travelling further north, if they are forced to use the now pointless HS2 have no choice but to change at Birmingham since there are no other stations available between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street. Under the original proposal that is exactly what they could have done, but now they are going to have to drag their luggage to New Street, are they going to bother? probably not they'll just get a regular train through from London to Manchester,Leeds,etc. I am in total agreement that the southern terminus should indeed have been St Pancras to link up with Eurostar making the whole project worthwhile. The rump that we are now left with is utterly pointless, a total waste of money and I would predict, unless the fares are significantly less that the current routes, simply wont get used.

5 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Just the original station building which is top centre of that image. I think that may have been the case for the past 150 years though.

 

The case for building the railway north to south simply didn’t stack up as well as south to north. Not least because trains to all major northern cities benefited from the southern section; and most still do even with the curtailed scope.

 

Once HS2 opens there won’t be a 1 hour 20 minute train service from New St to Euston via the old route. That relies on a tilting train and they are the railway’s equivalent of Concorde.

 

While I’m very much of the opinion that the only realistic options should have been Central London - Birmingham - Manchester (- Leeds) or nothing at all I think your overall view of the project is way wide of the mark.

 

There is plenty of evidence in the UK and Europe of how high speed rail and interconnected urban networks operate and are used. There’s a reason all major European economies - and some not so major ones - have been building high speed rail infrastructure for half a century and continue to do so.

 

The concept is sound, the problem is the execution both in time and scope - it’s at least 30 years too late and too short.

 

 

I'm in agreement with your opinion. Once the decision was made to build, get on and do so. To get halfway through and then bail out is the worst of all possible worlds, but they want to fool us into the narrative that they are 'saving' us money when the reality is all that they are now doing is wasting all of the money that has already been spent.

[JungleJames]

8 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

The new HS2 station will not be on Curzon Street. It will occupy the site of the former Curzon St station and incorporate the listed former station building on the periphery of the site.

 

It will however be considerably bigger than the original station with its main entrance adjacent to that of Moor St station on Moor Street Queensway.

 

There are - or at least were - collateral schemes to expand Moor St station to accommodate trains from the NE-SW corridor using new chord lines linking to the Camp Hill railway thus providing increased connections to HS2 and alleviate over crowding at New St which doesn’t entirely get resolved by HS2.

 

It’s also a short walk from Moor St (and therefore also from the new HS2 station) to New St and a regular connection used by thousands of people every day. Including quite often me.

I didn't think it would be over a km. But without knowing exactly how close the entrance will be to Moor St (I knew it was fairly close) I wasn't going to argue that one. Ta for this.

8 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Being of considerable age with two terminal brain tumours; I don't think that I would be a candidate for employment anymore!

But I could still drive a train though, cushy job that. Not colour blind, can sit down all day, short working hours, like to be alone, not dealing with the general public, pension, uniform, free travel, no physical exertion, overpaid, no outside working, piece of cake.

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to argue this. I shall let you believe this if you really do.

 

All the best.

27 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

It would seem to me that your argument fails to stack up since those travelling further north, if they are forced to use the now pointless HS2 have no choice but to change at Birmingham since there are no other stations available between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street. Under the original proposal that is exactly what they could have done, but now they are going to have to drag their luggage to New Street, are they going to bother? probably not they'll just get a regular train through from London to Manchester,Leeds,etc. I am in total agreement that the southern terminus should indeed have been St Pancras to link up with Eurostar making the whole project worthwhile. The rump that we are now left with is utterly pointless, a total waste of money and I would predict, unless the fares are significantly less that the current routes, simply wont get used.

I'm in agreement with your opinion. Once the decision was made to build, get on and do so. To get halfway through and then bail out is the worst of all possible worlds, but they want to fool us into the narrative that they are 'saving' us money when the reality is all that they are now doing is wasting all of the money that has already been spent.

My final comment, and hopefully you will now listen a little.

https://www.hs2.org.uk/what-is-hs2/

 

There is still a line that bypasses Brum, and joins the WCML a little further north. Changing in Brum is not needed for a lot of journeys. 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

14 minutes ago, JungleJames said:

I didn't think it would be over a km. But without knowing exactly how close the entrance will be to Moor St (I knew it was fairly close) I wasn't going to argue that one. Ta for this.

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to argue this. I shall let you believe this if you really do.

 

All the best.

My final comment, and hopefully you will now listen a little.

https://www.hs2.org.uk/what-is-hs2/

 

There is still a line that bypasses Brum, and joins the WCML a little further north. Changing in Brum is not needed for a lot of journeys. 

That is the point, no there isn't, Sunak has cancelled everything on HS2 beyond Birmingham (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67005544) and there are no stops now between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street the 'interchange' on your link is now out of date and will not exist because except for Curzon Street there will be nothing else to 'interchange' with. Yes, people will now just catch the same old trains that they are using currently to get to Northern cities, HS2 as it now stands has simply become an irrelevance and total waste of money.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

would seem to me that your argument fails to stack up since those travelling further north, if they are forced to use the now pointless HS2 have no choice but to change at Birmingham since there are no other stations available between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street.

I thought there was going to be a new interchange by Chelmsley Wood/Solihull connecting to Birmingham International?

you should be able and catch a slow train North from there too

 

still going ahead with it aren’t they?

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[Wanderer Vagabond]

2 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

I thought there was going to be a new interchange by Chelmsley Wood/Solihull connecting to Birmingham International?

you should be able and catch a slow train North from there too

 

still going ahead with it aren’t they?

 

 

 

Is there any point to it? If the HS2 line isn't going any further north, why would they need an interchange? You can go into Birmingham to link with Birmingham International Airport, it doesn't need a separate HS2 line. Since they've cancelled everything further north, cancelling that interchange would be small fry by comparison. It made sense on the full project, it doesn't make any sense on the truncated one. If you've come up from London and 'saved' a whole 20 minutes, you are going to lose some of that 'saving' by stopping at the interchange, aren't you?

[ditchcrawler]

Remember tomorrow is another day. What was the plan last year and what will be the plan next year, who knows.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

14 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Is there any point to it? If the HS2 line isn't going any further north, why would they need an interchange? You can go into Birmingham to link with Birmingham International Airport, it doesn't need a separate HS2 line. Since they've cancelled everything further north, cancelling that interchange would be small fry by comparison. It made sense on the full project, it doesn't make any sense on the truncated one. If you've come up from London and 'saved' a whole 20 minutes, you are going to lose some of that 'saving' by stopping at the interchange, aren't you?

all true, I’m not defending any of it, 

simply interested because I was brought up close by the NEC

 

but if you’re coming up from London for the airport you’d get off at Birmingham International before you got to Brum anyway,

 

 

 

 

 

[JungleJames]

2 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

That is the point, no there isn't, Sunak has cancelled everything on HS2 beyond Birmingham (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67005544) and there are no stops now between Old Oak Common and Curzon Street the 'interchange' on your link is now out of date and will not exist because except for Curzon Street there will be nothing else to 'interchange' with. Yes, people will now just catch the same old trains that they are using currently to get to Northern cities, HS2 as it now stands has simply become an irrelevance and total waste of money.

Your link does not disagree with mine. Birmingham to Manchester, as good as, is seemingly finished.

But there is a link to the WCML just north of Brum. The HS2 website will clearly be more accurate than BBC in this regard, and HS2 are showing you the exact detail.

I'm sorry if you don't want to listen.

[Captain Pegg]

3 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I'm in agreement with your opinion. Once the decision was made to build, get on and do so. To get halfway through and then bail out is the worst of all possible worlds, but they want to fool us into the narrative that they are 'saving' us money when the reality is all that they are now doing is wasting all of the money that has already been spent.

 

Your arguments are undermined by your lack of understanding of the project.

 

HS2 will run from Old Oak Common to Handsacre in Staffordshire with a spur to Birmingham that allows access to and from the north as well as London.
 

Direct services from London to Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire, Glasgow and north Wales will all use the line as far as Handsacre where they will join the existing West Cost main line to complete their journeys. These trains will pass through and potentially serve the new station at Birmingham Airport but do not need to go via the new Birmingham city centre station which will have its own dedicated services. Some of those trains could also continue northwards to provide connections between the Midlands, North West and Scotland.

[Grassman]

8 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

 

 

HS2 will run from Old Oak Common to Handsacre in Staffordshire with a spur to Birmingham that allows access to and from the north as well as London.
 

Direct services from London to Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire, Glasgow and north Wales will all use the line as far as Handsacre where they will join the existing West Cost main line to complete their journeys. 

 

I've been told from a very informed source that the once the HS2 trains join the existing WCML at Handsacre they will be slower than the existing trains for the rest of the journey north because they won't have the tilt mechanism, so any time gained coming from London will be lost once it joins the WCML.  Also the HS2 carriages will be shorter so the capacity might be less as well.

 

The same person told me that there's already a bottleneck on the WCML caused by Handsacre Tunnel where the existing WCML has to reduce from 4 lines to 2 lines, so the addition of HS2 trains will make it even worse and probably slow  the journey down even more.

[Captain Pegg]

28 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

I've been told from a very informed source that the once the HS2 trains join the existing WCML at Handsacre they will be slower than the existing trains for the rest of the journey north because they won't have the tilt mechanism, so any time gained coming from London will be lost once it joins the WCML.  Also the HS2 carriages will be shorter so the capacity might be less as well.

 

The same person told me that there's already a bottleneck on the WCML caused by Handsacre Tunnel where the existing WCML has to reduce from 4 lines to 2 lines, so the addition of HS2 trains will make it even worse and probably slow  the journey down even more.

That’s all true.

 

However tilting trains are essentially history and the current small fleet of tilting diesel trains is being replaced by non-tilting bi-mode trains. To a degree the loss of speed on curves is compensated by better acceleration and braking capabilities so it’s an issue that would have arisen anyway.

 

The advantage of Handsacre is that it’s just south of Colwich junction where the conventional routes to Crewe and beyond and Manchester split.

 

Possibly worse than the short section of double rather than quadruple track - which is immediately north of Colwich junction through Shugborugh tunnel - is that the speed restrictions at Colwich junction are 90mph towards Crewe and 45mph towards Manchester.

 

Handsacre was logical as a connection between high speed and conventional networks for perturbation management but it’s not a great place for the permanent connection.

[Pluto]

21 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Being of considerable age with two terminal brain tumours; I don't think that I would be a candidate for employment anymore!

But I could still drive a train though, cushy job that. Not colour blind, can sit down all day, short working hours, like to be alone, not dealing with the general public, pension, uniform, free travel, no physical exertion, overpaid, no outside working, piece of cake.

If they are overpaid, why is there a shortage of drivers?

[Bod]

21 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Being of considerable age with two terminal brain tumours; I don't think that I would be a candidate for employment anymore!

But I could still drive a train though, cushy job that. Not colour blind, can sit down all day, short working hours, like to be alone, not dealing with the general public, pension, uniform, free travel, no physical exertion, overpaid, no outside working, piece of cake.

Your a non stopping train, approaching a platform at 60 mph, you see a person at the end of the platform, on the edge, not a hope of stopping on the emergency brakes.....

This is the reality of train driving, as told by my son in law, who drives Kings Cross- Kings Lynn, via Cambridge.

This not in anyway, shape or form, a go at Tracy D, I'm just using her words, to illustrate there is a catch to every good thing. 

 

Bod

[Pluto]

20 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Is there anything left of the former Curzon Street Station? Last time we passed the site coming into New Street, the whole lot looked levelled.

Doesn't alter the fact that a lot of the time 'saved' on the trip from London will be wasted walking to New Street. Yes, the original project was OK in that you'd be directly connected to the northern part of HS2 at Curzon Street, but without that the project becomes pointless. After the initial novelty when the project opens, who is going to bother to walk to Curzon Street to travel to somewhere that isn't in the centre of London (Old Oak Common) when they can catch a train direct from New Street to Euston in an hour an 20 minutes at the moment. It doesn't make any sense unless they deliberately cut the number of trains on that line thereby forcing people to use the new track at greater cost.

 

As I've said before, this would never have arisen if the project had been started in the area of the country that actually needed better rail infrastructure, the North, rather than the area that is already flush with rail infrastructure, London and the South East since it would never have been cancelled without reaching London.

I don't know why they went to all that trouble, the existing station building could easily have been used.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

9 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

Your arguments are undermined by your lack of understanding of the project.

 

HS2 will run from Old Oak Common to Handsacre in Staffordshire with a spur to Birmingham that allows access to and from the north as well as London.
 

Direct services from London to Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire, Glasgow and north Wales will all use the line as far as Handsacre where they will join the existing West Cost main line to complete their journeys. These trains will pass through and potentially serve the new station at Birmingham Airport but do not need to go via the new Birmingham city centre station which will have its own dedicated services. Some of those trains could also continue northwards to provide connections between the Midlands, North West and Scotland.

Whether you like it of not, if I'm going from London to Birmingham or anywhere further North, I am simply not going to faff around going out to Old Oak Common to do so, I'll get on a regular train from a proper central London station. IF the line ever reaches Euston (debatable now) I would only use HS2 if the ticket price was comparable to the current lines, but given the cost of HS2 is that likely? As I've said, I am in agreement that the country needed better rail infrastructure but what we are now left with as HS2, now it has been eviscerated, simply isn't it.

[Captain Pegg]

8 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Whether you like it of not, if I'm going from London to Birmingham or anywhere further North, I am simply not going to faff around going out to Old Oak Common to do so, I'll get on a regular train from a proper central London station. IF the line ever reaches Euston (debatable now) I would only use HS2 if the ticket price was comparable to the current lines, but given the cost of HS2 is that likely? As I've said, I am in agreement that the country needed better rail infrastructure but what we are now left with as HS2, now it has been eviscerated, simply isn't it.

Undoubtedly the lack of a direct line into a central London terminus is detrimental  to the overall value of the project but your actual statements along the lines of “nobody is going to use it” and your seeming inability to recognise that your choice isn’t representative of society as a whole is just wrong.

 

Go to Stratford and look at the numbers of people vacating incoming long distance trains to access Crossrail or the tube network. The same applies to Paddington, which arguably isn’t in central London anyway.

[David Mack]

40 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Whether you like it of not, if I'm going from London to Birmingham or anywhere further North, I am simply not going to faff around going out to Old Oak Common to do so,

Most people travelling from London to Birmingham don't start out within walking distance of Euston Station, they travel by other means from their home or wherever. So whether HS2 is more convenient than the existing route will be dependent on the transport options from the journey origin to Old Oak Common. For many people that will be easier than flogging all the way into Euston.

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Most people travelling from London to Birmingham don't start out within walking distance of Euston Station, they travel by other means from their home or wherever. So whether HS2 is more convenient than the existing route will be dependent on the transport options from the journey origin to Old Oak Common. For many people that will be easier than flogging all the way into Euston.

 

Similarly, they didn't build Heathrow Airport in central London either, and that seems to scratch along ok, on the outskirts.

[Captain Pegg]

1 hour ago, Pluto said:

If they are overpaid, why is there a shortage of drivers?

The principal reason for that is entry into the driving ranks takes substantial training and is expensive. In itself that tells you something about the complexities of the job.

 

Train operators have historically had different attitudes to training drivers - for many there was a financial disincentive - and that created an internal market.

 

Today the DfT are effectively in direct control and aren’t interested in training any new staff to critical jobs which means the railway is absolutely dependent upon overtime working with long and unsocial hours simply to operate the basic timetable. That’s a large part of the train crews’ grief. It’s them that suffer the reaction to cancelled and late trains from the public while possibly working additional shifts out of a sense of duty rather than choice.

Edited February 25 by Captain Pegg

[Wanderer Vagabond]

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

Most people travelling from London to Birmingham don't start out within walking distance of Euston Station, they travel by other means from their home or wherever. So whether HS2 is more convenient than the existing route will be dependent on the transport options from the journey origin to Old Oak Common. For many people that will be easier than flogging all the way into Euston.

Well currently there isn't even an underground station at Old Oak Common, the nearest being either North Acton, East Acton or Willesden Junction, so compared to other north or westbound Overland Stations in London (Paddington,Euston,Kings Cross and St Pancras) it's accessibility is poor. The other stations mentioned have at least 4 underground lines available.

[Oddjob]

On 23/02/2024 at 15:06, Pluto said:

If it was about improving the rail infrastructure they would have built a new goods-only line from Harwich to the Midlands initially, with extensions to Liverpool, Southampton, and even that corruption centre of the NE, Teesport. The line would be similar to the one built between Rotterdam and the Ruhr, so high speed for freight, but nothing like HS standards, and thus much cheaper. The initial phase would cut across an area of low population, through fairly level ground, and relieve the congestion at Harwich, particularly noticeable during Covid. It would prove of benefit to the whole country, with the existing passenger network continuing to serve smaller towns which will be bypassed by HS2. HS2 is for the suits who want to rush around appearing to do something useful, while the general population will not be able to afford tickets if they are priced to pay for the infrastructure.

Build a freight line from channel tunnel up the centre of uk with branches to major cities depots every 50 miles for on off onto local lorry’s or canal boats lol. 

As we sold the boat and returned home to India (wife half Irish half German but born here heady mix I know) anyway Iam going to send the locals to help with HS2 these guys dug up a round about and built a 35 foot tall plinth for a statue in just 2 weeks. Takes years to fill in a pot hole but a statue wow only weeks. Miss the boat life but off to Oz doing a15000 mile off road camping trip leaving in a few days time looking fed to it.