We need to rethink the future of HS2 - Yorkshire Post Letters

THE Government should certainly review high-speed rail projects. The rail travel market has changed since HS2 was planned, and will change further post-Covid (The Yorkshire Post, November 30). The need for fast business travel is reducing due to the rise of video conferencing, and long-distance commuting will reduce as home-working becomes more established.

Thus we need to rethink what we want: I suggest we need more reliability, and more capacity, but 125mph is fast enough.

This can be achieved at a fraction of the cost, and much sooner than the original timescale, by improving the existing lines and bringing some closed lines back into use.

For example, restoring four-track sections on lines where these have been reduced to two will add capacity and allow faster trains to pass slower ones, and re-opening the Woodhead route would provide a second (better!) link from Sheffield to Manchester.

From: Bob Marshall, Sheridan Street, Bradford.

MOST people in Bradford would like Bradford to have a city centre station on the Northern Powerhouse Rail route from Leeds to Manchester, but no one knows where the line would go (The Yorkshire Post, November 28). Are they proposing a route from Rodley to Low Moor with the station in a tunnel under the city? Any other route they would be asking us “Do we want a station in Bradford or a station by the railway?”

Bradford is not the only city which should benefit from improved rail links between Leeds and Manchester. There was once a high speed electrified route from Sheffield to Manchester via Penistone, which could have been extended to Leeds via Barnsley. It may be easier to re-instate this route than to build a new line from Huddersfield to Stalybridge running parallel to the existing line.

From: Chris Howlett, Sheffield.

THERE’S a very simple and apparent solution to the anticipated threat of HS2 not serving Yorkshire as it was originally planned.

If this monumental cost-spiralling project really must go ahead, start building HS2 from the North heading down the country to London and if/ when funding dries up, Yorkshire will still be better served with a faster rail link as promised.

This is something London has always enjoyed, and continues to do so, at the cost and expense of the rest of the tax-paying nation, including Yorkshire.

You also have to question whether this scheme is truly designed to deliver more commuters and prosperity to the North or whether it’s simply another draw to the capital, taking that same wealth, prosperity and opportunity to grow away from those very regions it was supposedly designed to benefit.

From: Kathleen McDermott, Rotherham.

THE Government should definitely not give a commitment to the Yorkshire leg of the HS2. The recent lockdowns have shown that modern technology can help people work from home successfully.

New transport, whether railways or roads, causes massive damage to the environment. Here in South Yorkshire which is already a very built up area, the route cuts through villages and townships and bypasses Sheffield. The disruption in the area will be immense without providing any tangible benefit.

From: David Walls, Croft Rise, Menston.

BRITISH Rail’s Pacers were also well known as “Nodding Donkeys” as they had single axles, and didn’t make the traditional diddle-da, diddle-da noise. As one who used steam trains to go to school, I won’t miss them!

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