High Speed 2. About time. Non stop from London (Euston) to Birmingham (Somewhere) at 225mph. 14 trains and hour each one 400 meters long (interesting fact, I suppose, but not being a train spotter I am not in the habit of measuring train lengths in any meaningful way. Trains are long. Always have been.)

This new line will run right behind where I live, though in a tunnel. I am not going to object for various reasons, none the least of which is that it is in a tunnel. I am also not going to object because this sort of infrastructure in the UK is long overdue. The Victorians built our railways, in 1936 Mallard achieved 100 mph and….. nothing. Even Old Beardie’s awful (in my opinion) Pendolino trains struggle to keep up to the standards of rail travel achieved in the 1930’s. Railways further disintegrated after privatisation mainly because the new railway companies first task was to get rid of anyone who knew how to run a railway.

There is, in HS2, a lack of vision. The service runs into Euston. No problem there, save for the fact that Euston is at, well, Euston – in the same way St. Pancras is a good station – just impossible to get to. There are no intermediate stops – and the link to Heathrow airport is but a dotted line for people to think about. There may be a reason for that, of course. Airlines, having seen what damage High Speed Rail does to domestic air travel in Europe, may be none to keen to see it developed here.

What could be added to make this a really useful start? We could do with an M25 gateway. A “parkway” style interchange, built near the M25 with a sod-off 4 lane motorway access and egress onto a sod-off car park. An extension to Heathrow should be built at the same time – not as an afterthought, so too the connection to HS1 – the Channel Tunnel – to give connections (at 225mph) – from the Midlands and also sooner-rather-than-later Scotland and the North.

We also need some intermediate stops – apart from the M25 gateway, about half way. The whole development around my way only happened because of the railway (yes, back in 1858) and with the demand for housing being what it is, the inclusion of a half way stop would make possible housing development in comfortable, country surroundings, with easy access to London – as well as taking pressure off the green belt.

So, good idea – but where is the joined up thinking?