High Speed UK: The Fully Network Alternative to HS2

IN RAIL 803, William Barter wrote that HSUK (an alternative scheme to HS2) has no business case. This issue, HSUK responds to Barter’s concerns:

William Barter’s article highlights many of the misconceptions and dysfunctionalities that have bedevilled the HS2 project over the past seven years.

HS2 is all about building a high-speed line for trains too large to fit onto the existing network - and indeed, this is essentially what the project remit instructs. But HS2 will only deliver its fundamental objective of ‘hugely enhanced capacity and connectivity’ between the UK’s major conurbations if it

functions as an efficient and fully integrated network.

Currently, HS2 fails very badly against this objective. It cherry-picks the lucrative flows (for example, London to Birmingham and Manchester), but leaves a greater number of cities (for example, Milton Keynes, Coventry, Leicester and Stoke - total population well over one million people) out in the cold.

The UK rail network - and indeed the nation itself - can only prosper if high-speed rail is designed from the outset to improve every possible inter-city journey.

This philosophy of network integrity has underpinned the development of High Speed UK from the very start. The new lines will be aligned with existing transport corridors (such as that of the M1 and the West Coast Main Line), with close-spaced connections to existing lines. This may result in extra expense to create these connections and routes that appear to be sometimes indirect, but the outcome will be an enhanced national rail network which far outperforms HS2 (plus HS3), and which costs far less to build.

The HSUK concept is backed up by detailed route design (horizontal and vertical alignment) of over 1,000km of new, upgraded and restored railway, and by development of an outline national timetable. Its success as a national network can be appreciated from the following statistics:

Twenty principal Midlands, northern and Scottish cities interlinked with direct highspeed services operating at hourly or better frequencies.

Direct services to Heathrow from all these cities.

Inter-city journey times reduced by an average of 45%.

City centre stations in all principal cities - no parkways or new termini.

A four-track spine route from London to South Yorkshire, with the capacity to serve all cities served by the present inter-city network.

Complete avoidance of the Chilterns AONB, and a vastly reduced impact on Ancient Woodlands.

Step-change road to rail modal shift, resulting in CO2 reductions estimated at 600 million tonnes over 40 years.

£26 billion savings in construction costs, on a ‘like for like’ basis of new high-speed lines interlinking London and six regional primary cities, with minimal links to the existing network.

£12 billion savings taking into account fourtrack construction, links to existing network, and assorted upgrades necessary to deliver the full HSUK network and 45% journey time reductions.

For further details and route map, see www.highspeeduk.co.uk.

HSUK fully meets the Government’s objective for ‘hugely enhanced capacity and connectivity’ between the UK’s major conurbations, but HS2 Ltd refuses to take it seriously on account of its ‘failure’ to meet a distorted and inappropriate remit. The people of the UK deserve better.