Just watched a piece on Sky News regarding this, and one of the arguments in its favour of it, is that it will free up the existing rail lines to allow more freight trains to run on them. Apparently they anticipate that it will take up to 500,000 lorry journeys PER DAY off the roads!!!:?:?:? Is this even possible?
lol
Definitely daily? Seems a bit extreme…
Yeah… Tosco crick is all geared up for rail freight.
DJC:
Definitely daily? Seems a bit extreme…
Yes. Found the same story on the Beeb and it states PER DAY on there too.
That means a lot of unemployed drivers…
Is that factored into the cost?
500000 truck journeys■■? Yeah right.
According to CM there’s only 450,000 in the UK anyway. 
500000 a day sounds abit ridiculous and I hope it doesn’t materialise if that’s the case
I cant see any economic case for a new railway.Today we have skype and video conferencing there is no real need for business travel anymore.The investment should have been made 70 years ago.
DJC:
According to CM there’s only 450,000 in the UK anyway.
The other 50,000 are the ones involved in the construction of the line, then when the jobs finished they’ll go into a big crusher and be made into razor blades. The only problem will be there’s no trucks left to move the razor blades, which will mean there’ll be a lot of bearded men (not to mention the ladies! ). 
So I guess they would build more container ports and freight terminals all over the country as well for all these truck journeys they would save on then?
As far ask can see the line is being marketed with high speed passenger services in mind, I can’t see how they could achieve that with slow freight services on the line so maybe this figure is way out.
Also, why is it taking so long to build? I understand the Northern section might not be ready till 2040 or something 
The whole thing is a waste of time and money ,they would be far better spending the 4 billion per year on a new dartford crossing (re lsat weeks fiasco )
By the time its complete it will be out of date, and the cost, seriously You can get the train from Manchester to London in around 2 hours, is that not fast enough?
And the rail network is understood to be under used as it is.
We now have Skype and conferance calls for business meetings.
DJC:
According to CM there’s only 450,000 in the UK anyway.
That answers my question. I didn’t think there was 500,000 trucks in the UK but I wasn’t sure exactly.
The fact it won’t be built for 20+ years, but there’s a fair bit of desperation to get the acceptance for it, should speak volumes. Vested interests, and all that. Plenty of brown envelopes to be handed out.
A half competent opposition leader would announce the intention to not push ahead, and spend that money on upgrading the current infrastructure. Unfortunately we don’t have one.
Surely it’d be cheaper to just rebuild the Great Central Railway? Many of the once rural stations on it’s route have large housing developments close by to justify the cost.
Or reopen many goods yards in large towns and cities?
It said on the news today that Leeds will make 1bn from HS2 - well how much would Yorkshire & the North West make or have made already if they spent a few million opening the Woodhead tunnel again which people have been advocating for years. The M62 would be like a B road maybe if it was open again. For me the HS2 money should be spent on improvements / upgrades to rail & roads ie Intercity speed lines between Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/Hull east to west with a fast link from Leeds to Newcastle/Scotland north & Birmingham south, same again from Birmingham east to west linking such as Norwich across to North Wales etc , Norwich down the port coasts to Essex/London, and still change out of 50 billion.
It’s something nobody wants yet the politicians seem desperate to give it the go ahead. Makes you wonder why. Would love to know what gets said behind closed doors!
Muckaway:
Surely it’d be cheaper to just rebuild the Great Central Railway?..
It’d be cheaper to knock down Birmingham and re-build it 20 minutes nearer London. 
It’s just a vanity project for politicians. There’s no need for it and it that amount of money (triple what ever they say it would cost) could be spent more efficiently elsewhere, and benefit more people. The figures they come up with that would “benefit” the economy are pure guesswork, the cost of the thing is a fact.