Benefits of HS2 will be felt across the country

SIR – Several letters last week questioned the need for HS2.

Driverless cars will not make it unnecessary, as Ginny Martin suggests. Does anyone seriously think that, just because we haven’t had to steer on the M1, we are going to endure and add to the congestion?

Any increased car use for whatever reason will require new roads in urban areas, but cars that drop us off and then park themselves sound like an excellent way of feeding railway stations. Cars, however autonomous, are still cars, and they complement rather than compete with railways.

Upgrading a railway, which Rodney Tate discusses, is not like downloading a bit of software. After decades of upgrading, creating new capacity now means providing more infrastructure. There needs to be another pair of tracks in and out of London, and the benefits will be greatest if those tracks are built for high speed, leaving the existing line, with its well-placed local stations, to serve local needs.

The old Great Central alignment, proposed by Michael Simmons, is not the answer to providing capacity, as it never went to Birmingham at all, while in London it is still in use as the busy commuter route to Marylebone. The new capacity is needed at city stations at least as much as between cities – Marylebone is London’s secondsmallest terminus, so would require massive expenditure to enlarge. By contrast, half of HS2’s platforms at Euston station will be built within the existing footprint on under-used land.

As for video conferences, which Anthony Hubert thinks will render train travel unnecessary, companies I work with are returning to physical meetings, having found that face-toface contact is too valuable to lose. The growth in rail demand since privatisation has happened alongside development of the internet, and there is no evidence that communications technology will reverse the trend. William Barter

Towcester, Northamptonshire