Theresa Villiers on HS2, part two
Today, there was a debate in the House of Commons about the HS2 scheme, but with relatively few MPs in attendance. Not unexpectedly, the debate was long on platitudes and anecdote, and short on numerical analysis. It was funny to see Theresa Villiers’ finale, in which she parroted some factoids obviously prepared for her by HS2 Limited. It wasn’t that long ago that she was lambasting that company’s scheme, stating the HS2 route was wrong, lacked ambition, and didn’t provide the required Heathrow connectivity.
Mr Hammond confirmed that he was rejecting previous Tory plans for an “S-shaped” line that would pass through Birmingham, up to Manchester and across to Leeds.
That plan had been proposed by Theresa Villiers, who was shadow transport secretary before the election and is now a junior transport minister.
In today’s speech, Ms Villiers referred to ‘the existing line’ being nearly full, ignoring the fact that there are several railways between London, the Midlands, and the North. On most of these (e.g. the Chiltern Line), capacity is not well used. In fact, I’m not even convinced that most of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) is close to its efficient ‘capacity limit’. I think it was Network Rail who said that the West Coast Main Line is Europe’s busiest mixed use main line railway. I don’t know how would one even measure ‘busiest’, but a much more interesting comparison would be an intermodal one – between current person kilometres (or freight tonnes) in 24 hours per square metre of M1 motorway, and per square metre of WCML.
As far as London to Birmingham is concerned, if there were a need to move 1,000+ people in one train, the obvious answer is to build 420 metre platforms in those cities (at Old Oak Common and Snow Hill), and run 16-carriage trains on the Chiltern Line. That would deliver capacity higher than that of HS2, at a fraction of the cost, and eliminate the need to rebuild Euston station. The entire cost of a Chiltern upgrade is dwarfed by the HS2 disruption (and required London Underground rebuild) at Euston alone.
beleben 
“As far as London to Birmingham is concerned, if there were a need to move 1,000+ people in one train, the obvious answer is to build 420 metre platforms in those cities (at Old Oak Common and Snow Hill), and run 16-carriage trains on the Chiltern Line. That would deliver capacity higher than that of HS2, at a fraction of the cost, and eliminate the need to rebuild Euston station. The entire cost of a Chiltern upgrade is dwarfed by the HS2 disruption (and required London Underground rebuild) at Euston alone.”
Once again you resort to the charlatan’s technique of building up a false proposition and then knocking it down in an attempt to prove yourself right.
FAIL!
The raison d’etre of HS2 is not – as you falsely claim – to move 1000 people at a time from Birmingham to London. That is merely one (of many) outputs from the scheme. Therefore putting up a fatuous alternative proposal (have you ever been to Snow Hill?) in an attempt to discredit the HS2 scheme is laughable.
2/10 – must try harder.
ggrrllaa
October 13, 2011 at 9:00 pm
I’m happy to discuss posts on my blog, but can’t see any value in troll posts which deliberately misrepresent my position. I did not claim that the “raison d’etre of HS2” is to move 1000 people at a time from Birmingham to London. The blogpost says, “As far as London to Birmingham is concerned, if there were a need to move 1,000+ people in one train, the obvious answer is to build 420 metre platforms in those cities (at Old Oak Common and Snow Hill), and run 16-carriage trains on the Chiltern Line. That would deliver capacity higher than that of HS2, at a fraction of the cost, and eliminate the need to rebuild Euston station. The entire cost of a Chiltern upgrade is dwarfed by the HS2 disruption (and required London Underground rebuild) at Euston alone.”
I don’t know what the raison d’être of HS2 is. Before the project was even called HS2, it was supposed to be about carbon emissions. Then it was about, inter alia, “the North – South divide”, “capacity”, and “boosting the economy”. What I do know, is that there is no sign of a credible capacity, environmental, or economic case for new-build high speed rail in Great Britain.
One (of many) outputs of moving Birmingham to London intercity trains to the Chiltern Line, is the freed paths on the West Coast Main Line for more trains from London to northern England. And the net saving from not building HS2 (well in excess of £10,000,000,000) is then available for other road and rail projects (e.g. capacity and connectivity schemes, such as Uckfield to Lewes restoration).
beleben
October 13, 2011 at 10:27 pm
ggrrllaa
October 14, 2011 at 11:05 pm