HS2 rethink

When someone with as substantial a reputation as Alastair Darling publicly announces that he has completely reversed his stance on the scheduled high speed rail line, then its remaining proponents in government should cast a cold eye over the figures again. The worry is that expenditure on HS2 will virtually drain the rail transport budget dry. Many of us would argue that the road/rail expenditure balance is anyway skewed too much towards road. Better value than HS2 could be gained by improvements to the existing network - including perhaps full restoration of the Great Central.

It will be interesting to see the response from Railfuture, whose support for HS2 was already conditional.