This is the party of conpetence (pun intended). As soon as it looked likely this was going into the north, it quickly changed to “we cannot afford this”. This has been a storyline that has transcended decades. We are back to Jam tomorrow speeches for the north. There has been no attempt to replace what was lost from the EU. The Tories have very few mates in the north so why spend there.
This is based on a (quite likely deliberate) misunderstanding of what HS2 is for (a myth that has been helped by misnaming it).
It’s needed to take intercity trains off the lines that local trains need, so that local trains can actually run instead of being squeezed in between fast trains and delayed every time the fast trains are. This is why HS2 should have been built from the north southwards, because that’s where the capacity for local trains is most sorely needed.
Improving the existing lines won’t change the laws of physics.
I disagree with you wrt starting in the north. The WCML south of Birmingham is also desperate for relief and if you tried running HS2 trains down to Brum and then onto the WCML it would just make things worse.
Everywhere that isn’t London is desperate for adequate local train services. Starting in the North would have made it impossible to do exactly what they have just done.
Sure, but it also would’ve meant you couldn’t properly take the intercity trains off the existing lines, since they’d just go back onto the capacity constrained WCML south of Birmingham, and thus you couldn’t really do a whole lot about the capacity until that section was built.
HS2 is about freeing up capacity for local trains, by taking fast trains off the tracks the local trains need but can’t use because they have to squeeze into the gaps between fast trains. No, you won’t get the full benefit until the entire line is built but that is always going to be true. The idea was never just about shuttling more people to London, quicker. It was about making Northern cities functional.
Except most people on those intercity trains are trying to get to or from London, so it doesn’t make sense to just run Birmingham to Manchester. You have to run to London to get that capacity benefit.
Once more, it is about capacity for local trains, not intercity trains.
But to get that capacity, you’re moving the intercity trains off of the existing lines.
Yes.