"..Birmingham which is a city already served with a decent service from Euston"Dunno when you last travelled from Euston to Birmingham but as a regular traveller I reckon the service took a nose dive when Avanti took over from Virgin. IMHO much of the problem was trying to build a railway line with oversight by civil servants and ministers without the relevant experience to do so - there seems to have been far too much money spent on expensive consultants and a general lack of proper control of the spiralling costs. Every time I pass the construction work at Birmingham Curzon Street on the train from New Street I wonder why they don't seem to have included a transfer platform there. As for Euston, the idea that travellers on HS2 heading for the Continent would have to get out and lug themselves and their luggage along Euston Road to St Pancras always seemed misguided. Nevertheless having gone as far as they have, I don't think scrapping the line to Manchester at this stage makes sense. The September issue of Railnews has a piece about how the piers at Water Orton for the junction between the Birmingham and Manchester lines are in the course of construction, and most, if not all, of the land has already been purchased. I never thought much of Grant Shapps and in his three years as Secretary of State for Transport from 2019 to 2022 he had the opportunity to get a grip of the HS2 project and seems to have failed to do so. I just hope the Ukrainians aren't over-reliant on him in his new job.
Richard Greenhough ● 1080d