Talk about the UK rail network.
Such nonsense to suggest any new line could be built quicker than HS2. Any new route would need to go through the same consultation and design process HS2 did i.e. years delay. So its shovel ready HS2 or new line with uncertain risks and costs and time frames that's the choice l.
If you want to review HS2 fine look at where there are issues you can resolve whilst building fine but don't pretend there's some mythical option which avoids all the issues inherent in a project of this scale.
Strategic use of the word 'could'. I'm sure they've made some assumptions about eliminating regulatory based cost I.e environmental considerations.
Its just so tragic.
I thought the route still hadn't been finalised for the northern leg of HS2. Also high speed means you're less flexible, as you need to go in a straighter line than normal rail.
I agree that it seems unlikely that the extra effort to complete the northern leg of HS2 would be greater than that of starting from scratch, but I've been surprised before.
My understanding is that this will require new designing and consulting stages of phase 2. We have already spent about £2billion on Phase 2 which is likely not recoverable so you would need to respend at least a significant fraction of that on new design consultation and lawyers etc. So any cost savings you expect from different design requirements would need to be much greater than that (probably around 3-4% of total cost).
Yes slower services allows more flexibility with alignments but it comes at a cost of larger fleet sizes and likely more warehousing requirements(unless you reduce the passenger capacity to correspond). Speed was looked at in the original plans and found that reducing the speed somewhat did not reduce overall costs that much but did reduce the outcomes quite a lot.
The biggest problem is in the way costs have been amalgamated and communicated. HS2 had lumped in some really major project works that needed to happen anyway (notably rebuilding Euston that is currently not for for purpose for current passenger numbers) alongside at least two new stations to facilitate interconnections with the rest of the network. In other countries thought would come under separate budget lines and not look like one project.
The other big cost factor for HS2 was simply to demand more from it. We required it to be incredibly good at avoiding as much ecological disruption as possible and that meant more expensive tunnelling. It would have been the UKs only climate resilient line in the country partly as a result. So as another commenter said if its cheaper (which I would stake money it won't be significantly) it will be at the cost of much less care towards the environment and offering a much less future proof outcome. If we wish to meet climate obligations we need massive increases in rail usage and that only begins to be possible if you free up this scale of capacity from the rest of the line.
The other thing to say is the cost is a bit if a fiction in itself. The cost is paid for by borrowing against future revenues of the service so to downgrade the service to save 1% of cost and you potentially downgrade the return even more which means you could actually cost the treasury more. This isn't money that is available for anything else despite how its been reported.
Manchester is the North now?
Where is the Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Carlisle conversation?
There still isn't a motorway between Newcastle and Edinburgh. It is single lane at some points.