The replacement for the now-scrapped northern portion of HS2 is called Network North, which will see £19.8 billion invested in the North of England.
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MANCHESTER, Oct 4 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled the northern leg of the costly HS2 high-speed rail project on Wednesday and pledged to invest billions of pounds in local rail and road links instead, saying it was more suitable for a post-pandemic world.
The main gain of HS2 is that it frees up space on the rail network for more freight services. This point has often been missed in discussions about the project. There is no doubt that there would be environmental gains. The passenger gains are less compelling and less urgent.
HS2 Ltd, the state-funded body responsible for delivering the line, failed to add enough contingency to its cost estimates after using a calculation method that was inappropriate for the early stage of the programme.
How much will tickets cost? There is likely to be a premium of between 20 and 33 per cent for using the fast service. That would in theory push the cost of a London-Manchester Anytime ticket from £180 to £240 at 2020 prices, which works out at 6p per second.
HS2 was originally envisaged to operate more trains an hour and higher speeds than any comparable high-speed line elsewhere in the world. It has been estimated that this pushed up costs by about 10 per cent.
HS2 blasts through sensitive wildlife sites, because the speed means the tracks need to be straight. Possible connections between HS2 and other railways, especially East West Railway, have been ignored. HS2 does not provide interconnectivity and is far from an integrated solution.
The maximum speed currently possible in the UK is 186mph, achieved by Eurostar trains on the HS1 line between London and the Channel Tunnel. The HS1 line is used by Eurostar services and Javelin commuter services from Kent, although the latter have a max speed of 140mph.
The eastern leg of HS2 to Leeds is scrapped with no east-west line linking Leeds to Manchester being built, said the then Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps.
Per mile, the New York project cost $2.6 billion, which is high even by U.S. standards. For example, the Purple Line in Los Angeles cost $800 million per mile.
The number of trains running on HS2 will be almost halved and services will travel more slowly in a proposed shake-up of the £72bn line as ministers scramble to save money. Whitehall officials are considering reducing the number of trains from 18 to 10 an hour, insiders said.
BRITAIN'S new HS2 high-speed trains will do away with traditional standard and first-class travel in favour of carriages offering different “ambiences”.