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matt-p | 29 days ago

A problem with this argument is that it actually doesn't help most people on the HS2 route. If you live in a village on the outskirts of Aylesbury say, it's not much good to you personally that there's more local services on the WCML, because it's a 40-50 minute drive to the nearest WCML station; your local line will see no improvement. Freeing up space on the M1 has no impact either for the same reason.

It would of perhaps been an easier sell if we could of built it much closer to the WCML and told people, look this is to get rid of those horrible fast trains that wizz though your local station at 125mph.We'll use the space for more services so your commute to London from say Leighton buzzard is faster and less busy.

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growse|29 days ago

> if we could of built it much closer to the WCML

Knocking down half the towns that the WCML runs through to build more tracks carrying trains that aren't going to stop there would be neither easier nor cheaper than HS2.

matt-p|29 days ago

There is a huge amount of countryside between the WCML and the current HS2 route. I'm not saying it should be literally parallel.

panick21_|27 days ago

The reason you can't run as many other trains on WCML and other lines is because high-speed non-stop trains take so much capacity. Once you remove them, you can run many more local/regional trains with more stops and higher frequency.

The whole way HS2 is designed is to maximally reduce the amount of fast trains going north south on the existing network. Leading to a massive capacity upgrade on the existing lines. You can still run some express lines but likely much more lines that stop at more station, making it fast for you to go to next HS2 stop and from there to the further distance destination.

HS2 connection to Leeds was designed to help the ECML, the whole HS2 system was designed by experts to help with WCML and ECML.

Of course now that the former car brained fucking moron of a prime minister in his last attempt to safe himself canceled most of HS2 all those benefits are gone. And labor is to cowardly and ignorant to bring it back.