High Speed 2 – Liverpool & Manchester included ….
The outline of the proposed route for “High Speed 2″, the TGV-style line proposed to the West Midlands and then northwards, was announced today.
According to a press release, Lord Adonis said:
“I am today publishing HS2 Ltd’s report together with the Government’s proposed high speed rail strategy, which is based on HS2 Ltd’s analysis.
In summary, this strategy is for the development of an initial core high speed network which would link London to Birmingham, Manchester, the East Midlands, Sheffield and Leeds, with high speed trains running from the outset through to Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
This Y-shaped network of about 335 miles in total, with branches north of Birmingham running either side of the Pennines, would be capable of carrying trains at up to 250 mph and could be extended to other cities and to Scotland.”
Further details can be found details here.
The importance of “The Northern Hub” is mentioned, all part of the longer-term strategy to reduce the numbers of long distance trains on our more traditional railway, so we can get more frequent local services back again.
I haven’t yet had time to analyse the plans in detail. Thoughts from those who have would be much appreciated ….
2 comments 
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March 12th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
I haven’t studied it in deatail, but I’ve had a good look at the outline proposals. It seems this proposal is a better fit than the Conservative one of going (nearly) via Heathrow; that will simply lengthen the HS2 journey time (and build cost) for hardly any gain for those travelling to and from Heathrow. Even under that Consrvative proposal, passengers will still have to change trains to actually reach the airport, so a direct London – Trent Valley HS2 with an interchange with Cross rail at Old Oak Common for access to Heathrow, seems to make the best sense.
The northern end of HS2 is proposed to join the WCML south of Colwich, so the newly-4 tracked section in the Trent Valley should make a good buffer between the old and the new railways. But a flyover at Colwich might be needed to prevent bottlenecks with Stoke line trains crossing Crewe line trains.
At the southern end, HS2 runs into a ‘new’ Euston. But what seems to be missing is a link to HS1 so trains to and from the north can use the Channel Tunnel.
As for the nimbyism of the Chiltern dwellers….. heck, the M40 must be a far worse ‘bad neighbour’ than a high speed rail line!
My view is that we need HS2 for capacity reasons; the shortened journey times are a bonus. And experience with HS1 and the WCML upgrade has shown it is far better use of money to build a new railway than to cobble up an old one.
March 16th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I don’t get it.
They spent millions putting international services in to St Pancras and now will spend millions putting most long-distance London services in to Euston.
If they put them both in to the same station then you could have through services, e.g. Glasgow to Paris via Manchester, Birmingham and London.
Have there been any suggested routes for the line to take between Birmingham and Manchester yet?