3 ms·
HS2 will arrive in 15 years optimistically (20 years realistically) and will only get you from London to Leeds - the other half of the distance to Edinburgh or
by MagnumOpus 8y ago
HS2 will arrive in 15 years optimistically (20 years realistically) and will only get you from London to Leeds - the other half of the distance to Edinburgh or Glasgow will still be on slow tracks... Better than the US for sure but two decades behind FR, DE, IT or ES.
- isostatic 8y agoSure it's slow, but there will be big savings in 8 years time when London-Crewe opens up. The UK doesn't really have a great market for long distance trains in the same way that Europe does. If we weren't so insular and joined Schengen, then sure - high speed trains to Paris/Brussels/Cologne/Amsterdam from Birmingham/Manchester/Leeds/Bristol would work, but there's very few trips more than about 200 miles. HS2 isn't really worthwhile as a speed improvement, the main benefit is the increased capacity -- effectively six-tracking the WCML south of Crewe (and 4 tracking the Crewe-Manchester link).