It seems that Lord Berkeley has but one letter, which he writes to ministers every fortnight regardless of the issue of the day! You report that he has written a letter flogging the idea of HS2 and conventional services sharing tracks into Euston – apparently a reheating yet again of his ‘Euston Express’ wheeze, feeding HS2 trains onto existing lines at Queens Park (‘Euston development partner may be about to quit – Berkeley’ LTT 03 Apr).
This scheme was comprehensively analysed during petitioning for the HS2 Phase 1 hybrid Bill, and rejected because of its many operational and engineering defects. These defects included an extensive and largely undefined reconfiguration of the Euston approaches, so any suggestion that the scheme would not involve significant disruption is, at the very least, open to dispute.
Berkeley also suggests that dropping the speed of HS2 to 320kph would allow a simpler layout at Euston. This is clearly nonsense, for the simple reason that the maximum speed of the line is already only 320kph from the north portal of the Chiltern tunnel and even less for the Old Oak Common – Euston section itself. What the maximum speed might be in deepest Northamptonshire has no bearing whatsoever on how the London terminus operates.
He then relies on his already-discredited suggestion that HS2 capacity should be regarded as only 14 trains per hour (see my comments in LTT 10 Jan), to propose that the station approaches should be simplified. I do appreciate that “a halfpennyworth of tar” will sound ironic, but even those who oppose building HS2 in the first place would agree that if it is to be built, to bake in a constraint at the London terminus, which can never be eased, that prevents the whole railway ever operating to its full potential, would be a case of “spoiling the ship”, in spades.
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