Thread by @PermanentRail

This week, @LiamHalligan and @C4Dispatches asked whether #HS2 was a good use of public funds, and whether the same benefits could be gained by spending the money elsewhere.

Here's our answer.
#HS2alltheway #WhyHS2

The vast majority of Britain's railways are a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Because of our mix of fast, slow, non-stop and stopping trains, we aren't able to squeeze services together to get the most out of the existing infrastructure.

The fastest services eat up the most capacity by forcing everything else to get out of the way - trains can't overtake on a two track railway.

Building HS2 unlocks a massive amount of space on the existing railway by segregating high speed services onto their own pair of tracks.

Once HS2 is operating, services on the existing railway can bunch up nice and closely together, more like Crossrail or Thameslink. Capacity can leap upwards.

Because of its speed, HS2 does this for the WCML, MML and ECML. It's three lines for the price of one.

To achieve this step-change in capacity without HS2, you'd need to add two extra tracks to each of the three mainlines coming out of London right up to Manchester and Leeds, as well as rebuilding junctions and stations.

Remember how well the WCML/GWML route modernisations went?

This would not only be impossibly time-consuming and expensive, but it would impact on thousands more properties and environmentally sensitive areas, too.

Most crucially, we haven't got enough engineers in the country to deliver three simultaneous massive route upgrades.

What can HS2 deliver for the existing railway? All the freed-up space that HS2 leaves behind can be filled with local and regional trains.

Elsewhere, the alleviation of pressure on key bottlenecks will improve services across the UK, from Aberystwyth to Acle.

Transport now accounts for the largest proportion of the UK's carbon emissions... Poor air quality kills 36000 people a year, too.

We are often asked if investing in HS2 is better than upgrading our existing railway infrastructure and building or reopening more local railways.

Put simply, there's not enough capacity on our current railway to add new or reopened extra bits to it, as there's no space on existing tracks or in existing stations to run more services where these new lines meet the existing network.

To reopen old railways, you need HS2.

The best way to reduce transport emissions is by a massive modal shift away from road vehicles, and the best way to achieve that is by massively increasing rail capacity to carry more people and freight.

As we've just shown, HS2 is the cheapest and quickest way to achieve this!

Clearly, HS2 isn't the end of the story. There's more to be done between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, between the Midlands and the South West and towards the North East and Scotland.

But HS2 is the first and biggest piece of the puzzle. That's why we say #HS2alltheway.