The idea that such money is spent on a route that already has a regular service seems stupid. Birmingham needs million spending on New Street station, but no one in Westminster really cares. It dose have a new project to make it look shinny, but New Street wont get the extra capacity it needs.
They will fund HS1▸ , which they could have lived without. Yes people can join the train easier from the North, most people actually would rather fly out of there local airport than use the train to London anyway. Its less hassle and quicker. Plus it makes little difference to people arriving in Euston or Paddington if they go to St Pancras or Waterloo?
Was the benefit for anyone out side of a small section on England? With the huge amount of public money that has gone in, it^s a question to be answered.
We're obviously not going to persuade you that HS1 was worth it. But if we hadn't built HS1, would we even be thinking about
HS2▸ , let alone 3,4 etc. Relevant to
FGW▸ travellers, KX is much more accessible than Waterloo.
I think in 20 years time, when passengers are regularly taking the train to Amsterdam and Frankfurt, we will recall the dark ages when 300kph trains used to trundle through Kent and South London at what became ever slower speeds as their train from the Continent approached Waterloo. And we will wonder why it took us 13 years to build our first
HS▸ line.
