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Analysis: East Coast Main Line - high demand, not enough space

Columnist Phil Haigh

Philip Haigh looks at the work that has still to be done to accommodate as many trains as possible for the December 2025 timetable

East Coast Main Line: high demand… not enough space




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  • 58Bone56 - 14/05/2025 14:52

    It's obvious that it is railways like this that need the investment not the £100bn HS2 White Elephant. How could it be got so wrong, who is to blame for this farce.

    • Josh Brown - 21/05/2025 02:46

      HS2 is mainly about releasing capacity from WCML. Sounds like ECML is pretty congested too which is why it makes even less sense that they cancelled the Eastern leg of HS2 back in 2021 from Birmingham to Leeds which would help ease congestion and that's before Sunak cancelled the rest of HS2 North of Birmingham to Crewe and Manchester. Speed is a secondary benefit of HS2 but it's been the lack oversight and constraints around planning and acomodating NIMBYs in the South and Midlands as well as high cost of land acquisition that have led to the cost to balloon to over £100bn and that's before you include the tunnelling to Euston and the station redevelopment there which won't happen until years after trains start running between Old Oak Common and Birmingham Curzon Street

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