Unsubstantiated claims

In his masterly dissection of the Integrated Rail Plan, Philip Haigh reports a Department for Transport claim that the full HS2 eastern leg scheme would have offered an increase in capacity of “over 400%” (RAIL 950). But how do they work that out?

Currently, Leeds has two nine-car Azumas per hour to London - a total of 1,222 seats. The eastern leg service would have been three trains per hour, one of 200 metres and the others of 400 metres at peak times - an hourly total of 2,750 seats.

Even assuming that both existing trains continue to run, as they should to serve intermediate stations to London, the total with HS2 becomes 3,972 seats per hour - an increase of just 225%.

Of course, the capacity has to be shared with those intermediate stations, but HS2’s also had to cater for a share of the traffic at East Midlands Hub and

Birmingham Interchange.

As well as further invalidating the DfT claim, this points to one of the big (but largely unremarked) gaps in the IRP. Journeys today from the South Midlands to Yorkshire and the North East are slow, indirect, involve multiple changes, or mean driving to railheads with direct services. The demand is there - you can see it on the M1.

By contrast, feeder services to Birmingham International for Birmingham Interchange, or to East Midlands Hub, would have provided single-change journeys from West Coast Main Line and Midland Main Line intermediate locations. I estimate this would have saved 58 minutes from Milton Keynes to Leeds, compared with today’s fastest journeys.

In a response to me from the Rail Minister, the DfT tried to claim that equivalent options would be offered by changing into HS2 trains at East Midlands Parkway.

This is rank nonsense, as the HS2 trains from there would run only to locations to which we have direct services already, on conventional lines, so that no time saving is offered.

William Barter, Northants