HS2’s technology

SIR – Duncan Rayner (Letters, May 26) proposes Maglev in place of wheel-onrail technology for HS2, but on the mistaken assumption that HS2 will run trains only between London and Birmingham.

In reality, HS2 trains are planned to run beyond Birmingham on existing lines to locations such as Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester. A Maglev route to Birmingham would force passengers to transfer between the new and existing lines, thus losing time and negating any benefit from using Maglev for the first 100 miles.

Pointwork at Maglev stations is also cumbersome and slow to operate. HS2 plans to run 18 trains per hour out of Euston, but it is unlikely that a Maglev station could operate at anything like that frequency, which means that a Maglev line between city stations would be inherently underutilised compared to an equivalent railway.

William Barter Towcester, Northamptonshire

SIR – Your correspondents seem to suggest that HS2 is being built only from south to north. If, however, they were to take a look at the area near Birmingham New Street or the original terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway, they would see that work is also under way there, building the route from north to south.

When completed, HS2 will be a worthy and much-needed addition to the infrastructure in this country.

Stuart Hicks Reading

SIR – Chiltern Ridges, which I represent, is seeing the countryside sterilised in preparation for HS2. This is an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions.

The Chilterns Tunnel portal emerges north of Great Missenden in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The county council asked the Government to hold back damaging preparations until the contracts for HS2 were awarded, but was refused.

HS2 is not the panacea to futureproof our rail network, as its connectivity is very limited and it will rely on 20th-century technology for long-distance travel. What it will do is to see the arrival of yet more commuters in the South East, where productivity and wages are highest.

Saving the cost of HS2 could benefit our health and social-care services, and provide better rail transport for millions of commuters.

Patricia Birchley County Councillor Chiltern Ridges, Buckinghamshire

SIR – The relentless campaign against HS2, mostly from those who won’t live long enough to realise its benefits, misses the point of building a better railway.

HS2 is designed to cater for the huge increase in the number of passenger and freight trains on our existing railway, namely the Victorian West Coast Main Line, which weaves its way along infrastructure designed for the steam age.

While the journeys will be much quicker, it should probably be renamed High Capacity 2, because that is exactly what it is designed to achieve. Just ask people in any of the towns and cities that have benefited from new trains or electrification schemes over the decades, which have hugely improved connectivity.

Paul Prentice London SE8

SIR – We have been led to believe that in a short number of years we will all be carried by self-driving, nonpolluting electric cars, so why would we need HS2? And won’t automated vehicles be capable of travelling in tight, train-like convoys?

Simon Olley Kemsing, Kent