In what may be an unwise move I dip my toe into the murky world of high speed rail. If you thought the most irreconcilable conflict in the world was between Israel and its Arab neighbours, then you obviously haven't experienced the Pro v Anti HS2 mob in full flow. On one hand you have those who think building any new railway line is the work of the devil; and on the other, those who believe the HS2 plans were carved into stone by Moses himself and cannot be deviated from.
Whilst I'm broadly in favour of HS2, it was some glaring weaknesses, the first is that it runs to Manchester but not Liverpool thus two cities lying an equal distance from London and of similar sized populations end up with vastly different travelling times. Liverpool bound "Classic Compatible" trains, which will be half the size of the ones heading to Manchester, will leave the HS2 line south of Crewe and then travel on the current track through the Cheshire countryside over the Runcorn Bridge and into Lime Street. The forecast travel time reduces from the current 2h10m to 1h46. Whereas Manchester benefits from a reduction from 2h08m to just 1h08m.
A second weakness is in the choice of Euston as the London terminal, just down the road from the Eurostar/HS1 terminal at St Pancras. Down the road. Having Eurostar/HS1 and HS2 not physically linking up to enable through running is sheer madness.
Back here on Merseyside, the new Liverpool 2 Container Terminal is currently being built and is expected to open at the end of 2015. This will double the number of containers being handled at the port, and the majority of these containers need to be moved by rail. There is only one line serving the Port of Liverpool and whilst it should be able to cope with extra freight trains, it connects up with the same line going into Lime Street that all the passenger trains use.
The main problem facing the main UK railways is the coming years is one of capacity, we cannot keep building new roads. The growing number of passengers and, as noted above, the increased amount of freight coming into and out of Britain can only be moved by the rail network. HS2 as well as providing new track, in turn frees up space on the current lines and meets this need. However when it was first announced to the public this was a secondary consideration and all the fanfare was about how quicker it would be to get from London to Birmingham. Having used this as the original selling point, you can't blame the general public for being confused at now being told it's all about capacity.
So in my view, whilst HS2 is a good project, it needs a few changes. It must go into Liverpool. It should provide a direct HS1/Eurostar connection. And it should be built so that additional lines, i.e. linking to the likes of Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as towards the Southwest and Wales and of course a Transpennine Route from Liverpool to Hull are easily integrated into a cohesive network.
No comments:
Post a Comment