Ey up, where are the reports?
According to the Daily Telegraph, the EY consultancy produced a report on the claimed ‘hub impacts’ of HS2 which was “released to government” in October 2014. However, at the time of writing, the government doesn’t seem to have made it public.
The list of HS2-related reports yet to see sunlight also includes the ‘Tring Crossrail feasibility’, ‘HS2 options for Scotland‘, and of course, the assessment of the Major Projects Authority.
beleben 
The Telegraph item is dated 13th October 2014. Someone going by the name “amw” wrote a comment saying
“The most imaginative scheme I have seen for freeing up capacity on the most congested part of the WCML (Between Euston and Rugby) is to electrify the Chiltern Mainline, then make use of the spare platform capacity at Paddington released by Crossrail for new services between London and the North West via a short new Chiltern/WCML interconnector line between Brinklow and Bishop’s Itchington in Warwickshire.”
I made the suggestion for a 24km link between Bishop’s Itchington and Brinklow in a Beleben comment much more than 3 months ago. Has someone else come up with the same idea? This link could also connect into the Rugby-Coventry line near Church Lawford. This would allow some Chiltern line trains to enter Birmingham via Coventry. Perhaps Chiltern could even promote it as Evergreen 4 (or 5).
It would also avoid the need to double track and electrify the Leamington Warwick Kenilworth Coventry Bedworth Nuneaton (NUCKLE) line as part of the so-called Electric Spine. Not only would this avoid the need for freight trains to cross the Rugby – Birmingham line in Coventry but the NUCKLE route could perhaps be more usefully converted for use by trams or tram-trains with sections of on street running. But that wouldn’t give you the excuse to spend £11.3 million (2013) on a Kenilworth station.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenilworth_railway_station
Crossrail looks ridiculously unbalanced with 24 trains per hour on the central section and 14 of those terminating rather amazingly at Paddington.
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/benefits/a-world-class-new-railway/
Hardly world class, hardly crossrail, more like get-off & change rail. Surely it would make much more sense to send some of the 14 up the Chiltern Line and the remainder somewhere else, rather than terminating them in London. Removing some surburban trains from Marylebone would free up capacity for more long distance services to the Midlands.
johnma
January 8, 2015 at 5:52 pm
I don’t think Electric Spine or NUCKLE are viable concepts. It’s unfortunate that Centro are fixated on badly thought through proposals, which cannot succeed.
beleben
January 9, 2015 at 11:15 am
[…] Beleben, on his website, reminds us of a few of the missing reports about HS2: […]
STOP HS2 | Ey up, where are the reports?
January 27, 2015 at 11:19 am