I find it difficult to believe this is the best way to spend 50 billion on the rail network.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...itics-say.html

Agree completely.

It is a vanity scheme whose primary effect will be to assist London in sucking up even more money, jobs, investment and business from the provinces.

The West coast mainline is one of the busiest railways in the world, has just undergone a hugely disruptive and expensive upgrade that didn't achieve its goals and will be full soon. It clearly can't be upgraded further. The only solution is to build another railway, which might as well be high speed.

Yes, there are other upgrades needed, but that doesn't mean hs2 shouldn't be built.

The recent cost increases are mainly increasing the cost overrun contingency to a 95% chance of being on budget, plus more tunnels to appease nimbys in Buckinghamshire, and is 42 billion.

Cameron and Osborne want their legacy.

The only plausible argument I have heard for it is that it will increase long term capacity through higher frequency. There is also the hope that it will increase economic development in the north.

It's just bloody stupid. With remote working, business use of trains is in decline anyway, so what's the point in spending tens of billions on something that may not be needed in the future.

Clearly, you spend little time on trains. I suspect that those that do, have a very different opinion.

An individual's experience or lack of experience on trains is irrelevant. It's all about statistical usage and growth projections.

Apparently some of the economic case for HS2 is based on businessmen working on the train - in which case, surely a shorter journey would be less beneficial than a longer journey, and, less flippantly, why does the government investment case depend on what people might or might not do on a train? How did they quantify and monetize that little gem? Does playing Angry Birds on your work phone count as work?

I tend to think the cost of this project is somewhat deemed EXPENSIVE and can the UK afford it. With the cost of housing and rent in London compared to other parts of the country how many commuters use the rail links on a daily basis.
If it is built what will the price of a fare be between the North and London?
Sure knocking off time between Manchester to London sounds good but at what cost to the traveller?

Clearly, you like to make assumptions.

I spend a lot of time on trains, including travelling between London and Birmingham on the already excellent Chiltern Line service. Spending tens of billions to cut my journey by a few minutes ranks up there with the Millennium Dome in terms of pointless spending IMO.

This is exactly what it will do. Taking the existing high speed services off the WCML will reduce the difference in speeds of trains on the line and thus hugely increase capacity for local services and freight.

As to the cost; it is simply continuing the 2b a year we are spending on crossrail right now, easily affordable.

Come on with the new HS2 line you could shave off another 35 minutes between London & Birmingham (proposed new times) isn't that worth the billions

And on HS2 itself, of course, more trains can be run.

Upgrading the Victorian infrastructure is not a bad idea, it's just the cost that is hard to justify in the present climate. And as FL has noted, using the service is going to be punishingly expensive. At present, I would be happy to see HS2 put on hold.

35 minutes perhaps (last I heard it was 16 mins), but then that chucks me out at a station outside Birmingham, rather than the current city centre location. So that 35 mins (plus more) will have to be spent transferring back into Birmingham.

And yet it's primarily going to improve the journeys of those travelling on business apparently. Of course it is, don't all business people have their meetings miles outside of the city centre?!

I'd rather see the money be spent elsewhere on the network. As Peter M said recently H2S will suck the cash out of the rest of the system.