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Euston Cross alternative HS2 proposal

Good that influential rail people are questioning the wisdom of the current HS2 plan. Unfortunately, they forget that train flows from Euston/St P/KX are uni-directionally northwards.

Few of the HS passengers arriving from the north will want to continue beyond central London, so most of the trains would have to terminate at a vast multi-platform underground cavern. Apart from costing more (stations form 25% of the HS2 construction estimate) it is beyond the expertise of engineers to build it without endangering the buildings above.

Euston Cross falls into the same trap as HS2 by assuming that all HS trains need to run through Old Oak Common. Whilst OOC has a bright future as an interchange with Crossrail, it is not necessary for a high speed line to do a rail tour of London in tunnel in order to call there, and then be so far west that it has to go through the Chilterns AONB (yet more tunnel) to go north.

HS1 in Kent was not built to the route put forward initially; it has finished up with 85% of it running alongside older railways or motorways or in tunnel. The objectors are happy with the outcome. We have not learned the lesson. What is needed is a reappraisal of HS2 by rail experts not tied to DfT or HS2 Ltd. This could reassure a sceptical public that the HS2 plan is tight, or more likely to reveal that wrong decisions from the outset have produced a disastrously bad plan. Only Patrick McLoughlin can commission that reappraisal.

Re: Peers and HS2 officials to discuss alternative ‘Euston Cross’ plan