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.