Use Beeching lines to backtrack on HS2
Who has more ageing rivals than old pals?
THERE is a question that soon will only be asked in high-IQ quiz programmes: can anyone recall how many of President Trump’s trusted aides have now departed in conditions of mutual rage? It must be well into double figures within a tad over three years.
The latest is John Bolton, once his National Security Adviser. The fiery Bolton is now accused of supporting the charge that Donald Trump intervened with Ukraine to try to damage his rival Joe Biden, a possible opponent in this November’s presidential election. This was also the basis of the move to impeach him.
Apart from the seeming impossibility of remaining for more than a few days in Donald Trump’s good books, one’s eye is drawn to the ages of the leading candidates for autumn’s campaigns. Trump will be 74 and Biden 77. Another possible Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders the socialist is already 78 and will turn 79 in September.
It could be that in the next presidency a space will have to be cleared in the West Wing car park for the Zimmer frames.
BOTH Government and the populace at large continue to wrestle with the case for or against proceeding with the proposed HS2 rail line. I have made no secret of my view that the £106billion cost is far too much to justify, particularly when contrasted with what we could do with that staggering sum.
But increasingly a tempting alternative is being broached and our Government would be in clear default if it refused even to authorise a project study. This is the restoration of discontinued rail connections that have lain idle since the Beeching cuts of 1963.
Richard Beeching’s draconian closedowns of the early Sixties are often accredited to an anti-train zealot but he was nothing of the sort. He was simply carrying out government instructions as our railways back then fell into disrepute with the people.
We were moving en masse into the car age and were besotted with rubber tyres and a steering wheel. But history is a fickle old bird and alters radically over the decades.
TODAY our roads are clogged, often with unmoving queues for hours on end. We know our vehicles emit noxious fumes.
Time for a rethink on the convenience, speed and comfort of those secondary rail lines? Why not? The Government’s main concern is the inter-connectivity of all those Northern towns and cities that were once bound together as easy-to-reach destinations by branch lines.
There are two great advantages to discontinued branch lines when the question of their restoration is considered. For one, land needed for them has already been acquired and belongs to the nation. Land
IN AN otherwise joyous weekend there was one black spot last Sunday with the England rugby team’s crushing defeat by France in their first contact of the Six Nations contest.
Our white-clad side played their usual stodgy, passionless game and were 17-0 down at half-time.
Another seven points for France in the second half put them out of reach.
In the last quarter two brilliant solo runs gave England 14 points but too late. In the closing minutes France could happily
purchase along with the devastation of great swathes of some of our most beautiful countryside, is a huge negative for HS2.
Second, all the cuttings, bridges, tunnels and embankments are still there – overgrown but still there.
Bringing back those lines would cost a small fraction of HS2.
Also, it could well be that HS2 would suck more talent, investment concede three more, but nothing near enough to challenge their 24 points.
The simple truth is that in this game you cannot be champions on the basis of the occasional solo run.
You need fast-moving, slick-passing, attacking three-quarter movements and England never even started one, preferring to punt uselessly forward, give away possession and await the blistering counter-attack from the Blues.
Another four games like that and we could be looking at the wooden spoon.
and enterprise out of the North towards the magnet of the South than would be pumped the other way.
And as for a single North-South link, the Great Central Main Line still exists. It lies just north of London where it could be linked to Marylebone Station without landscape destruction and it goes to the heart of the North. Like the branch
lines, its core aggregate track, sleepers and rails are still there. A few buildings have gone up and would have to come down, but again only a fraction of the lovely farms, granges and other residences that would be destroyed for HS2.
And one final argument – time. The HS2 would not reach Leeds for 30 years.The branch lines could be restored in 10 per cent of that.