Just thought I'd see if anybody thinks about this subject as much as I do and if anyone had ideas as to what they'd like to see under this name.
I think the best place for it's London terminus will be St Pancras but how I wonder.
Can see two options possible:
1) an annex on the west side of the existing station
Advantages being more platforms but high speed trains would be blocked from easy interchange with the Eurostars by the Midland Mianline tracks acting as a kind of barrier.
2) an annex on the east side
Infinitley more difficult but with the advantage being Eurostars and domestic HST's would be in the same area of the station.
As for the line itself, the seemingly obvious place to start is using the North London line for relatively low speed running (say about 160-220km/h) through urban London. Although I'm not sure if that single track connection from HS1 would end up being a problem capacity wise.
There would need to be another line going under the current St Pancras-NLL chord and onto the NLL. Think of it like the soon to be opened St Pancras-HS1 layout with the two running tracks going over/under each other.
A station at Willesden Junciton (see my other thread) would be good I reckon and from here the line continues at classic line speeds to Denham before the new High Speed formation breaks away.
Then to get a bit more basic from here the line should go to Coventry Parkway-Birmingham International-Lichfield Trent Valley-Stoke-Stockport-Manchester Eastlands-Preston-Carlisle.......then up to a triangle junction in the Scottish Central belt with links to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Obviously there would be branches to Liverpool (from Stoke), Leeds (from Manchester) and Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York, Teeside & Newcastle (from Birminghm International).
Sorry to go on but it would be good to hear what others think, it might be an irrelevant discussion knowing this Government but it's always interesting to talk about it.
I think the best place for it's London terminus will be St Pancras but how I wonder.
Can see two options possible:
1) an annex on the west side of the existing station
Advantages being more platforms but high speed trains would be blocked from easy interchange with the Eurostars by the Midland Mianline tracks acting as a kind of barrier.
2) an annex on the east side
Infinitley more difficult but with the advantage being Eurostars and domestic HST's would be in the same area of the station.
As for the line itself, the seemingly obvious place to start is using the North London line for relatively low speed running (say about 160-220km/h) through urban London. Although I'm not sure if that single track connection from HS1 would end up being a problem capacity wise.
There would need to be another line going under the current St Pancras-NLL chord and onto the NLL. Think of it like the soon to be opened St Pancras-HS1 layout with the two running tracks going over/under each other.
A station at Willesden Junciton (see my other thread) would be good I reckon and from here the line continues at classic line speeds to Denham before the new High Speed formation breaks away.
Then to get a bit more basic from here the line should go to Coventry Parkway-Birmingham International-Lichfield Trent Valley-Stoke-Stockport-Manchester Eastlands-Preston-Carlisle.......then up to a triangle junction in the Scottish Central belt with links to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Obviously there would be branches to Liverpool (from Stoke), Leeds (from Manchester) and Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York, Teeside & Newcastle (from Birminghm International).
Sorry to go on but it would be good to hear what others think, it might be an irrelevant discussion knowing this Government but it's always interesting to talk about it.