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Robin Stafford's avatar

Excellent piece. I hope some politicians are listening to you...

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Ant Breach's avatar

excellent

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John Stewart's avatar

Great piece. Agenda-setting.

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will maclean's avatar

good post!

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Matthew Hutton's avatar

Definitely with HS2 the decision not to do (at least one) station between London and Birmingham was also a significant cost driver.

The Tokaido Shinkansen for example has a stop on average every 20 miles and that is very typical except in places of very low population density like rural France.

And yes the French have built their TGV lines with few stops, but a lot of the French countryside has a population density of e.g. the Scottish Borders so it is more like saying Lockerbie doesn’t deserve a high speed station.

Certainly in France the places that get the Birmingham fast services on the Chiltern mainline are sizeable enough to get TGV service (I.e. High Wycombe, Haddenham and Thame Parkway, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Dorridge and Solihull)

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