THE Press contained a piece about an HS2 “parkway” station to the west of York (July 26). Parkway stations are a bad idea.
But we must be realistic. If HS2 goes to Scotland via the east coast, the fastest services won’t pass through the existing station.
Even without stopping, they’d be slowed down too much. So a high-speed York bypass seems inevitable.
A better solution would be for some trains to bypass York to the west, while others are diverted off the HS2 main line to stop here.
The article also mentions HS2’s preference for a west-side route to Scotland.
The brains behind this were mostly seconded from the DfT and Network Rail, the very two organisations who have just turned electrification into a fiasco and announced the go-ahead of Crossrail 2, thereby comprehensively trashing any notion that the Northern Powerhouse might be anything other than political hot air.
It’s far more mountainous on the west side than on the east, so a west-side HS2 would cost an unbelievable fortune.
Going up the west side would also miss out north-east England and make it impossible for any train to serve both Glasgow and Edinburgh.
An east coast route would be far better, but the powers that be seem to think that because the West Coast Main Line is the most congested, HS2 must automatically go up that side. Wrong.
New high-speed lines are in principle a good idea, but HS2 as currently proposed is stupidly conceived and should be scrapped.
Alan Robinson, Lindley Street, Holgate, York
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