HS2, why?  I’ve been asking myself this for a long time.  I’m an engineer, I understand that we need to progress, new tech is to be embraced.  So why don’t I get the need for HS2?

We are told it’s so that we can get to London faster because presumably someone wants to?  I’ve not heard anyone say to me that the trains are too slow, we can already get to London in 1 hour 10 minutes from here. Using HS2 would actually be slower for us as we would have to spend an extra 40 odd minutes travelling to Birmingham first. The other side to the speed argument of HS2 is that is will save loads of time which is just not true.  You only ever hear HS2 quoting the station to station times, they never quote actual travelling times from door to door including all the intermediate travelling stages.

We are told the problem is capacity, and that the train will promote growth outside London.  So which trains are over crowded at the moment? Morning ones to London, and evenings ones out of London. So the HS2 would be adding capacity to travel to London and not away from London.  Something smells round here…..

HS2 would be environmentally friendly – really? How can something travelling at around 200mph be environmentally friendly, that statement just defines the laws of physics, and that’s before we have looked at the local impact (with local  benefit) of the building of the line.

Another thing i have wondered is where the passengers are that want to have to pay more for their train journey. I know that as a 2+2 family the cost is already the reason why we don’t use the train as it costs more than using the car, and to be paying for new trains plus new line plus high speed HS2 is going to mean much higher ticket prices for passengers on HS2.

HS2 - Do we really need it?

It's difficult to believe that the HS2 train rumbles on. There is still no convincing arguments being put forward for it. The cost benefit analysis is based upon an average salary of £70,000 which goes to show the figures are totally phoney and the train is for London City fat cats.

It's usual for trains to have stations for passengers to join and alight from services, strangely this is omitted from the HS2 plans. The line doesn't link up to the existing HS line to the continent so greatly reducing its usefulness. The line doesn't link with existing transport links in Birmingham, it's half a mile or more from the existing train network. It doesn't link with Birmingham Airport. On fact it doesn't really link with anything that is useful.

What it does successfully link though is countless sites of beauty, many lovely English villages. Not sure about the point of that though.

Even for us in The Midlands the deceased journey time is of no relevance, from Lichfield we can already get to London in only 70 minutes. If we used HS2 it would take at least 30 minutes longer and involve changing trains. Not everyone, on fact most people do not travel just from the centre of one city to the centre of another. This fact appears to have been ignored in the HS2 planning, perhaps because it would destroy the cost benefit calculation......

I would love to hear people step forward calling for this train line to go ahead with some real reasons but to date I haven't heard anyone. It's clear that at every event to promote the HS2 only those against the line turn out, this should send a clear message to the HS2 company that there is no call for the line.

Part of the future capacity requirements or forecasts must be wrong as more meetings are moving to non travel modes such as webinars so people don't need to travel as much. I know a number of people that work from home but in many countries without the time wasted travelling, this is only going to increase as technology moved forward faster than anything else these days.

One of the reasons put forward for HS2 is the capacity on the trains to London. Strange that as these tasks run with spare capacity, the full ones are the ones taking London traffic. This demonstrates that additional capacity would only add the the North South divide.

So politicians, it's time to start taking note of he feelings of your electorate, and not following your party line. We elect you to represent us not the conservatives, labour and liberals. Watch out or UK IP could be giving a lot of you a shock at the next election.

An update in 2016

The saga rolls on, HS2 Ltd are now being questioned for failing to properly respond to queries. Demonstrates to me what a sham the whole thing is, especially with a report that is not published.  There is only one reason for not publishing a report in these circumstances, and that it when the details and findings do not match with what the government wants it to say.

There is still no case for HS2 that has emerged, still not met anyone that wants a faster or more expensive train journey to London which does not shock me. I know of even more people that commute from Lichfield to London daily, and poeple that have moved from the South to Lichfield because of its great links to London.