All that HS2 would achieve is a faster journey from A to B. If you add C and D as stops, most of the time saving dissappears. In our crowded island, the extra stops would be needed.
If a Pendolino carries 500 passengers, six trains per hour (on a single track) gives a maximum of 3000 passengers per hour. On HS2, headways would have to be longer and I don't think any more than 3000 passengers per hour would be possible.
To achieve very little, HS2 would cost at least £20billion at todays prices. Given that it would take at least 10 years to be up and running, the final bill would be upwards of £50 billion and counting.

HS2
 

:rolleyes: the whole point of HS2 is not to make it quicker for Londoners to get to Brum or visa versa. No, the point is that the Germans want to take their shiny ICE to places like Manchester and Edinburgh so that all us Brits can see how wundabra they are at high speed travel. Then they win the battle for supremacy in Europe.:eek:

Wasn't it an ICE unit on which a wheel "exploded" at high speed a few years ago?
Are they compatible with the UK loading gauge?

Yes they are all standard gauge across Europe until you reach Russian soils.
The only stopping point is channel tunnel permissions/safety features on trains, etc.
Obviously DB Schenker are stretching their Tax payer muscles across most of Europe so they are just waiting for Euro Tunnel to say Oui to letting ICE have access rights (paying them more money really) and timetables will be drawn up to London on HS1 for trains ex-Frankfurt/Munich/Berlin and so on.

It certainly was, at Eschede....see Wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster


They've fixed the wheels now, but there was quite a stink about it since they were warned by a tram company which used similar wheels and had them disintegrate.

A door flew off an ICE whe it was passing another one recently,it seems as though DB is trying to take over all of our companies so we will have a single nationalised railway again .At least it will be financed properly and run to a strict schedule!

I make that an average of about 117mph - was it a special test run with dispensation to run up to 140mph?

Reading this thread with interest, one thing I can't get my head round is this. Are there really around 30,000+ people a day wanting / needing to travel in either direction? If so, why.
I am a big fan of the railways but I still don't think we need HS2. Probably just a change of mindset.

Mick

Agree the passenger figures are suspect very optimistic and the money should be spent on existing lines and rolling stock

Look what happened in the recent down-turn - lots of plans to expand Stansted Airport and Heathrow all put in the bin because the forecast demand just melted away. Business needs to travel around the globe disappeared and meetings took place over the internet with things like webinars. Maybe more meetings will happen this way so why travel by air or rail when you've got the internet.