I love the idea of the UK having High Speed trains. Great virility symbol and I’m male. I’ve been a regular business traveller to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds for 20+ years. All these services feel more reliable and better, if  albeit very expensive than past years. Getting there in a fraction of the time – fantastic…or so I thought.

So how is the Department for Transport progressing High Speed 2. 250mph is fast and the line is being designed for this speed but no one is using such speeds. In Europe the happy compromise of 186mph has been reached. China has seen a 250mpg high speed crash and is now backpedaling. The difference between 250mph and 186mph sounds trivial but in terms of cost is huge and in terms of accessing city centres is even more dramatic.

The proposed route is daft. The first stop out of Euston will be Old Oak Common in West London, where and why I hear you ask. where is that – its a railway sidings of epic propotions. The why is to change with Crossrail and trains to the west. But surely a High Speed 3 from the Midlands to Bristol should be the plan for that. And electrification of the lines from Paddington to Swansea, not just Cardiff, would cause a huge leap in speed on that route. But stopping at Old Oak Common means going west before going north. It means an extra stop before reaching high speed. It’s more distance and sheds load more money. It also means going through the Chilterns rather than beside the M1 – and what an advert for high speed trains zooming past relatively stationery vehicles plodding along at 70 or 80mph on the M1 that would be.

Due to the very high speed proposed it doesn’t mean for Birmingham tunnelling through the heart of the city with trains going onwards to our other great northern cities but terminating there. So instead of a timetable with 10+ trains an hour from London to Birmingham it means more or less the same number as now and different high speed trains going onto Manchester and Leeds. And different high speed trains from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds. Its planning on making Birmingham city centre as a cul de sac. The same solution is planned for Manchester and probably the same for Leeds. Their is even the riaks of out of city centre statinos – but why take a train if you’re stuck out of town and its not as if we have trams and undergrounds in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds.

Ditching the weird Old Oak Common proposal, going along the M1 and through city centres would allow 186mph trains on a 200mph track running the same proposed journey times as 250mph and cost significantly less and therefore could be delivered much sooner. It would also save the Chilterns from being mauled.