It's official. It's magic. If it sounds too good to be true ...

HS1 was £54 m/Km when it opened in 2007.

HS2 is, so far, £191 m/Km over its full 555 Kms, at £106 billion. 

Quite some difference!  Nearly 4 times more expensive per Km to construct today than HS1, when it opened 14 years ago.

This, below, is from the official HS2 website and my correction/rebuttal is in glorious bold blue!  My research shows that HMG/HS2 and its promoters are exaggerating so seriously with their misleading spin that they are lying.  READ ON as to why I say that and tell me what you think, please.  Am I wrong/mistaken?   Tim

How HS2 creates more rail capacity

As a brand new railway line, HS2 is the best option for taking the pressure off the existing network. It takes the pressure off the existing intercity lines by flying past all the stations travellers on the intercity trains want to stop at.  It adds extra capacity where it is needed most. To benefit London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, ONLY.  Building HS2 frees up a massive amount of space on the existing railway by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks. But you still have to have the same level of service for those same long distance services.  Nothing is gained!  Once HS2 is operating, services can run much closer together, meaning there can be more rush hour trains, helping to relieve overcrowding.  Only if the existing intercity trains are slowed.  And that gives the intercity stations a worst service.

Once the full network is operational we expect HS2 trains to carry over 300,000 passengers a day. HS1 to Europe has 6,000 passengers a day.  HS2 is future proofed, by making sure the network can grow with increased demand.  High Scandal 2 is a scam, a deception and nicely accelerates the runaway greenhouse effect for our ultimate downfall.

NOT Second City but Tenth Rate City!

ABOLISH THE CITY COUNCIL AND RUN BRUM FROM ANYWHERE BUT BRUM - like in my backyard in dismal Dudley! 

It started with two out of the three city centre Birmingham rail stations being demolished; only to be rebuilt to make for fewer lines and platforms, certainly at Snow Hill.  The third, Moor Street, was closed.

In the 60s and 70s we had the wholesale closure of rail lines as road congestion slowly grew.  More stations were demolished and sites used for other purposes, as we foolishly put all our eggs in the one basket of fine new ring roads and road transport.

In 50 years of urban rail closures, Longbridge to Four Oaks rail line re-opened across the city and the Jewellery line via a re-opened Moor Street Station that was foolishly closed but, wisely was never demolished - thankfully!

Since the 1980s, some of the rail lines have been left unused or underused for Midland Metro trams to further fragment the once unified rail network that once saw only trains.  Trams are now unnecessarily replacing not only trains but buses!  No evidence of even one car commuter switching to trams who could not have switched to the train, if trains had been left on that urban rail line now used by trams.  (The line was closed, presumably, under Beeching and, after some years, eventually re-opened for trams.  Utter incompetence and idiocy!)

In 34 years of fruitless endeavour, only one out of a whole network of tram lines has been opened!  More failure, more negligence and more incompetence.  And, that one line went on a perfectly good rail line, apart from a short section on road!

Trams instead of trains on 11 miles of our crowded rail network, desperate for more capacity (but not even trams on 45 miles of empty, double track rail line in Brum and the adjoining Black Country - I exaggerate not!).

Your city council and PTA/Centro have plumped for Snow Hill Sta to link with New St Sta using trams instead of the nearer Moor St Sta.  This is a piece of idiocy, when all the trains that stop at Snow Hill also stop at the much nearer Moor St!  You could have spent a tiny fraction of the money now being spent linking Snow Hill and New Street stations with trams, on a simple travelator (or moving pavement) to help bridge the distance for passengers travelling between Moor Street and New Street Stations.

Safer movement for all road users, including cyclists - and freeing up the road network - by making:

1. all the existing bridleways, towpaths and cycle/walkways fit for purpose ie - free of mud, puddles and overgrowing vegetation;
2. completing white lines on pavements for cyclists by dropping the kerbs;
3. dropping all the kerbs on access/egress points on the Harborne Line Cycle/Walkway; STILL NOT BEEN DONE!
4. completing the Bourn cycle/walkway by doing the excellent job that was done there by doing exactly the same with the two rights of way in Woodgate Valley CP - one side of the stream for walkers and horses with a soft surface and the other side for walkers and cyclists with a hard, free draining surface (preferably, a convex rough tarmac surface);
5. promote walker friendly, super-courteous and responsible cycling on shared routes;
6. re-open the 38 miles of existing double track, unused or under-used rail lines in Brum and the Black Country to make for more people being able to use the much safer rail network instead of the car or bike - many miles are alongside commuter congested roads, too.  For many decades, this has been totally stupid transport policy by the city council and PTA/Centro who should know better.
7. fund the Canals and Rivers Trust to help them make all their urban towpaths available for buggies, wheelchairs, cyclists and walkers so that the towpath network is seen as the alternative to the road network for these users that it should be.

All of this really should not need spelling out - yet again!!

Sir Bob Kerslake wrote in a key report on Birmingham City Council, "Get the basics right."  Even the basics are all to pot, as I have shown, here.

Empty rail lines; trams replacing buses and trains; but, growing congestion on road and rail!

Dear Peter and Toby - and copied to Geoff Inskip, for his information.

I am looking forward to meeting with you this afternoon at 3 at Centro House.

I would like these matters to be discussed, please:

1. The UK's rail (and even road, at peak times) congestion bottleneck - New Street Station.
2. Birmingham's second rail station - Moor Street.
3. What can be done with the above problems?

In addition, I would like to hear your views on my assertion that we should concentrate on the two main public transport modes - road for buses, rail for trains, only.  Complete electrification and consider giving buses a bigger role in reducing rush hour car congestion.  Avoid further complication and expense with trams.  Learn from Edinburgh.

Double trouble is worsening with -

• resource depletion and human climate change from:
• living infinitely on a finite planet
• living unnaturally on a natural planet
• UK's indigenous population is growing and worsening the above.

There is always an unanswerable business case for every expensive and flash project that the London government wants.  Never a flawless business case for super expensive (many tens of billions) military schemes, projects and ventures in far flung corners of the planet for every single year over the last 100 years, however.  Never a mighty tome of files on why the economic argument is made for a re-organisation of the NHS and social care.  And how funny; indeed, how very strange that the economic and business case is so incontrovertibly made for spending £50 billion of our taxes on high speed, green field rail lines but never for bringing back into use our unused or underused 38 miles of double track rail lines. Every metre of which is continuously welded and with concrete sleepers, too.  That business case never, ever stacks up, even though some of the miles run alongside, or very near, to commuter congested roads!  And, could even ease the gridlock on the approach roads to New Street Station 'Drop and Go' tunnel (actually, 'Stop and Crawl' tunnel) of nicely perfumed exhaust gases.  There is simply no economic argument for doing anything about all that!

The decades of unfair funding for the Wider (or Larger) Birmingham region continues.  The North of England economic powerhouse and a 'Transport for the North' is promised for them but nothing for us.

Best wishes

Tim