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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
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That summary isn’t quite accurate nor is it quite straight forward where there are new winners and losers from the revised strategy.
Phase 1 (London to Birmingham) is currently under construction and Phase 2a (Birmingham to Crewe) is due to start construction in the next 2-3 years. Where the plans have changed is when it comes to Phase 2b, which has slight amendments to the western branch and broader changes on the eastern branch.
The western branch of Phase2b (Crewe to Manchester) is still going ahead. Where there is a new conversation is around the Golborne Link; the proposed spur where HS2 connects to the West Coast Main Line for journeys onwards to Scotland. Golborne is just to the south of Wigan (the current plan is outlined below), but the new thinking is to extend HS2 further north (bypassing Wigan) to somewhere around Preston. Under Phase 2b, HS2 was targeting a journey time between London and Glasgow/Edinburgh of 3hrs 50mins, however with the revised connection at Preston and other works, planners are exploring whether this journey time can be reduced by either 20mins, 35mins or 50mins (i.e. a 3hr journey time), weighed against cost, disruption and time to deliver.
https://assets.publishing.service.go...eb-version.pdf[/I]
The next big change for HS2 comes with the eastern branch of Phase 2b up to Leeds. The original plan saw the line running from Birmingham to a new station (Totton) in-between the East Midland cities of Nottingham and Derby, spurs to Sheffield and York (for journeys to Newcastle on the East Coast Main Line) before arriving at a new terminus adjacent to the existing Leeds station. As per the below map, the plan is for the section between point A and to a point to the south of point H will be constructed. The line then branches east (to Nottingham) and west (to Derby), with trains running on an upgraded Midland Main Line to Sheffield. HS2 won’t serve Leeds or Newcastle, but both would be the recipient of an upgraded ECML.
Image sourced from the Department for Transport: https://assets.publishing.service.go...100-590000.pdf
There are pros and cons to changes with the eastern branch; Nottingham and Derby are primary beneficiaries at the expense of Leeds and Newcastle. Fewer services running via the eastern branch also opens up increased frequencies to Manchester, Birmingham and other western branch destinations. The cons are more complicated and dependent upon how much money (potentially more than what a fully developed HS2 Phase 2b eastern leg would have cost):
- The eastern leg of HS2 provided the maximum capacity relief for the MML and ECML, there is a risk that capacity could be reduced as running faster trains on a mixed-speed railway entails more spacing and thus fewer services
- Upgrades to either main line will not come cheap and will be incredibly disruptive, it could be a costly repeat of the WCML Upgrade from several years ago which ran massively over-budget, didn’t deliver the scale of upgrades originally envisioned, and was incredibly disruptive
- HS2 was predominantly focused on running the majority of HS2 services on dedicated tracks; running more services on (upgraded) mainline infrastructure could present operation issues
- There is a north-south divide in the UK, but this strategy (HS2 effectively becomes a WCML by-pass) could create an east-west divide by undermining the Yorkshire cities
Images sourced from the Department for Transport: https://assets.publishing.service.go...eb-version.pdf