HS2 should have taken the Great Central Line out of London from Marylebone to Sheffield and Manchester.
Built as 4 track high speed route and to a European Loading gauge it would have been perfect for High Speed Trains. The line avoided Birmingham....and using it would rather destroy the GCR Heritage line. An acceptable loss, in my view!
Agreed. However, isn’t one of the reasons that this option was rejected something to do with the very high traffic levels on the route from Marylebone to somewhere in the Chilterns (not sure where) which was never taken out of service?
One of the old bridges is being reinstated as we type and will re-join Great Central South (Loughborough to Birstall) with Great Central North (from just north of Loughborough to Ruddington).
They have built a few houses over the old tracks in Ruddington but that is not an insurmountable problem. The Nottingham Tram runs along part of the old route. When they put the tram in, they had to reinstate a bridge that was demolished in the 70’s.
