HS2 - not very fast, is it?

London to Birmingham in 49 rather than 81 minutes. Big hairy deal.

London to Birmingham is 100 miles so it is averaging around 120 mph - less than the 140mph the current trains are capable of doing if they improved the signalling (or ok lets say about the same if you take into account speeding up and slowing down).  WTAF?

  • Leeds - Birmingham, HS2 time 49 minutes, current time 118 minutes
  • Leeds - London, HS2 time 81 minutes, current time 131 minutes
  • Manchester - Birmingham, HS2 time 40 minutes, current time 88 minutes
  • Manchester - London, HS2 time 67 minutes, current time 127 minutes

Assuming it ever gets built, those are much faster journey times than I thought were planned. 

Manchester to London in 67 minutes would be impressive but simply doesn't makes sense given the trains go via Birmingham and the Birmingham to London leg alone is 49 minutes

Moves capacity of existing Victorian era lines into a faster separate line and allows freight to make better use of existing trains which is much better for the environment as well as making everyone’s life a bit easier.

Its not about capacity and it’s not about speed  and it’s not about the environment.  It’s about creating jobs up and down the country.

Basically it’s the labour motorway job creation scheme but adapted for the rail.  We do need to upgrade the lines anyway so rather than mess around delaying existing commutes, creating a whole new line makes a lot of sense.

Manchester to London in 67 minutes would be impressive but simply doesn't makes sense given the trains go via Birmingham and the Birmingham to London leg alone is 49 minutes

It depends on the intermediate stops. The 67 min Manchester trains don't actually stop at Birmingham, they go direct to London. The 49 min Birmingham trains stop at Old Oak and Birmingham Interchange.