High Speed Rail 2 was originally predicted to cost over £30 billion, including the spur towards the North of England towards Manchester and Leeds. But the London to Birmingham/Macnhester and Leeds route is now predicted to reach £50 billion, and according to Newsnight when they did a feature on HS2 (17th July 2013), the eventual cost could even hit £70 billion.
The whole purpose of the high speed rail route is to easy capacity on lines such as the West Coast Main Line, and provide a faster journey between London and three major cities. The trains could reach 250mph, almost as fast as a Bugatti Veyron, but the overall flaws of the route are overweighing the postitives. As mentioned in a previous blogpost, the line would require to use tunnels under the countryside, cut throughs peoples homes and other land, which is causing a lot of controversy.
The first stage of the route would go from London to Birmingham, seving Birmingham Airport and Heathrow. However, peoples viewpoints are that the route would need to see more stations installed along the route, in order to generate customer and overall return in investment, as well as ease congestion on the West Coast Main Line. According to HS2 board members, the UK could not do without HS2, so they are maintaing a strong case for the line.
Most people are sceptics; the line is too expensive and with increasing predicted costs, it is unlikely to see an a return or break even. For every pound spent on the route, apparently more will be gained through ticket sales, which means that for every pound, there will be some profit. But this may not be the case; for every pound spent, the total spendage could like be half of that, meaning that HS2 could be proved useless. This will be a contunuing debate for many years running, some people are on the fence with this project, meaning they have no idea whether to back the scheme or not. We will see in the next couple of years about the developments. More to come regarding this big project, keep an eye out.
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