Shift HS2 hub from Toton to East Midlands Parkway
Industry Insider identifies several relevant points regarding the ongoing developments tied in with HS2 ( RAIL 839).
Perhaps the most important issue to resolve is that of high-speed access for the East Midlands. In comparison with other cities, the proposals here stick out as distinctly second class.
In a nutshell, the East Midlands’ HS2 problem is one of trying to satisfy two (and probably three) cities with the remote Toton ‘Hub’. This is an unsatisfactory compromise that simply will not work - passengers will be isolated several miles from the centres of both Nottingham and Derby, with no connecting rail services.
A linked and extended Nottingham Tram network has been cited as a solution. But as this is a stop-start system, any time benefit of a main line high-speed service would be negated by slow transfers to and from the city centres.
Ideally, HS2 should serve these two city centres directly, but I acknowledge that there are problems to be surmounted.
Access to Derby, with its smaller population, is arguably easier, with its layout already suited to cross-country connections. Conversely, Nottingham station runs east-west and necessitates an awkward reversal of train direction.
Leicester, too, cannot be ignored, given its large population and excellent connecting services. As things currently stand, Leicester will effectively be sidelined completely from the high-speed network. Moreover, neither is it now scheduled to receive an electrified service. This is just not good enough for a city of such importance.
But while such ideals should remain the target, they may all be difficult to achieve, given the current flawed thinking on routeing. And so, a more acceptable solution might be for the Hub to be placed slightly further south at East Midlands (Airport) Parkway. East Midlands Trains already calls there, and a much more direct and quicker service to all three cities could surely be facilitated from there, rather than from Toton.
Taking things back one stage, common sense dictates that the shortest route from London to the major north-eastern centres logically follows not the East Coast Main Line (nor indeed a 60-mile detour via Birmingham, as currently proposed), but the former Great Central route via Leicester and Nottingham.
While that trackbed is now but a distant memory, a broadly similar path northwards from Euston (or possibly St Pancras or Stratford?) would make much more sense, thus forming a V-shaped, rather than a Y-shaped HS system. Leicester would then be back into the frame from which it should never have been omitted. Timings overall would be reduced, and capacity increased.