HS2 risks putting the brakes on the rest of UK rail network

AS evidenced by the statement of Ed Balls to the Labour Party conference (Yorkshire Post, September 24), at long last politicians are beginning to wake up to the fact that the HS2 project is on a wobbly track.

On the same day, the Yorkshire Post quoted Phil White, former chief executive of National Express Group, as saying that the existing rail line to London is already very quick but needs updating. Exactly.

While £10bn was being spent on the West Coast main line, its East Coast equivalent (ECML) needed similar improvements but only received peanuts. Such investment would massively increase ECML’s capacity and, since it is a far straighter route to London than that for HS2, would reduce journey times to the levels forecast for high speed rail if, that is, it is ever built and lives up to its extravagant billing.

The ECML, serving half the country with long-proven services, has been starved of investment. And now, incredibly, its fast London trains will be diverted on to the high speed system at York, leaving only a downgraded East Coast line to the south for slower “holistic” trains.

Inevitably, such massive changes will adversely affect many towns east of the Pennines, none more than Doncaster which, if HS2 is built, will lose over 130 fast trains per day to and from London King’s Cross.

How can the town be expected to overcome such a devastating loss with only fewer and slower “holistic” services for replacement? Many other towns and cities including Hull, Wakefield and Chesterfield, will also be disadvantaged.

Besides the escalating cost of up to £80bn for HS2, other problems loom large. Our starry-eyed Government has failed to mention ticket pricing, which is waiting to derail HS2 along its Yorkshire leg.

From everywhere east of the Pennines, the planned HS2 route to London via Birmingham is significantly longer than either of the region’s existing main lines and, since the Department for Transport (DfT) has bravely stated that it assumes the fares structure will be in line with the existing railway, journey distances will figure large in ticket pricing.

To the cost of tickets must be added travel to either of the two HS2 stations in the region which, for most passengers, will be much greater than travelling to local stations to catch the very London trains that will eventually be axed.

Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, repeats the 
mantra that our railways are “Victorian”. What baloney. Apart from the wonderful architecture of St Pancras station, there is nothing Victorian about the region’s mainline railways.

However, unlike the present DfT, those early engineers did understand that the shortest rail routes to London followed straight lines, only deviating to serve many towns and populations along the way.

In the past 150 years, those places have grown massively 
and their rail services must 
not now be vandalised in the name of HS2, which will serve only the few who reside near to the two HS stations and can afford what will undoubtedly 
be the new line’s extortionate fares.

High speed rail will disconnect more people than it connects, making the line unfit for 
purpose.

Instead of building HS2, significant money (billions not millions) should be used to improve the East Coast and Midland main lines, plus other Northern road and rail projects, which are all crying out for funding.

HS2 shows every sign of becoming the largest white elephant this country has ever seen.

The Government should face its embarrassment, cancel the untried project and allocate massive funding to improve existing transport infrastructure in the wider region, before it is too late.