The government announced its proposed 250mph High Speed Rail link plan today with a Y shaped network. The line to Birmingham from Euston is to be first followed by a line to Manchester and a separate one from Birmingham to Sheffield and Leeds. With the first full speed trains running all the way to Birmingham around 2027.
Sounds great but still a lot of questions to be asked. The biggest one being will it ever reach Preston.
Will there be a full capability link to Scotland. Will it go up the west or east coast or both or remain a slower line. Liverpool is on a spur from Manchester so will Glasgow be on a spur from Edinburgh via Newcastle on the east coast. That could mean Preston missing out.
Protests from people living on the route will be considered with one person in the Chilterns saying they aren’t convinced of its value – yet living only 20 miles from London it has no value to them. Although I wouldn’t want the line near us particularly if it spoilt nice areas of green. The M40 cuts through the Chilterns and has created an ugly gash in Englands green and pleasant, lets do better than that. Maybe using the existing West Coast Line in that area is a better solution although it might lead to years of unacceptable disruption.
The Conservatives are listening to the people on the route and looking at a line via Heathrow. That seems to have some sense as cutting out flights is one of its purposes. Although a line further west via Heathrow might be less politically messy for the Conservatives or is it just expediency not to announce it now.
The other issue is the timeframe. It’s so far in the future that it might be overtaken by technology. The Conservatives have said they’ll pull it 2 years forward which sounds better but not good enough. It should be planned for it to run to Manchester in 2020 at the latest although it is said we can only afford £2bn a year and the London crossrail is spending that till 2017.
The technology will probably all be imported into the country that built the first trains. Surely we can do better than that, where are the British companies that can do this.
Other countries are now building trains that run on magnetic fields and by 2027 will the HST begin to look like the stagecoach and horses. The canals and original railways were built quicker.
Another influence will be for Preston to be the link for the north west, outside Manchester. Building Tithebarn will make Preston that much more of a convincing destination.
This line, if it was available now would change the idea of travel and bring more wealth to every area it touches. It would be possible to commute to London. Birmingham would be a stones throw away from most regions. Reducing flights from Manchester to London as well. The downside of that is that the prices would need to be high or the line won’t have enough capacity. To have fast trains from Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds converging with the Birmingham trains on one line will have an almost constant frequency.
The French found that they built too many stations and it slowed the line and reduced capacity so the regional philosophy sounds about right.
The line is planned to within 5 metres it is said so lots to think about, need more information.