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Call it a hunch, but I have a suspicion that Mark Harper may no longer be Transport Minister by the end of this week.
There looks to be a general election on Thursday. It is likely that some of us who do not own cars and rely on trains instead are not particularly grateful for all that the government has done to improve the railways. Other voters may have their own reasons for a change of government.
If that is the case, this week’s announcement of a proposed replacement for HS2 is the ideal epitaph for the government that committed the worst act of infrastructure vandalism by scrapping the high-speed link from Birmingham to Manchester.
HS2 is desperately needed between the West Midlands and north-west England because of the critical lack of capacity on the existing rail line in Victoria. That’s why it was an all-party deal for 15 years until Mark Harper’s boss, Rishi Sunak, scrapped it last October in a vain attempt to secure electoral support.
Now the son of HS2 can be unveiled. Instead of frequent high-speed trains running over dedicated new tracks to a vastly expanded and modernised Manchester Piccadilly station, it’s pretty much the opposite. London Northwestern Railway, which currently runs one stopping train an hour from the capital’s Euston station to Crewe, wants permission to extend it to Manchester from summer 2026.
Statement of interest here: I am a frequent user and big fan of London Northwestern Railway. The railway company is pushing the boundaries of what is generally considered the boundaries of “outer-city” trains. Most travellers use the company to places like Milton Keynes, Leighton Buzzard and Northampton. However, the train company also runs a useful service along the West Coast main line to Stafford and Crewe.
I also like Avanti West Coast, but for a grab-and-go ticket or for morning rush hour travel, London Northwestern is usually the cheapest option.
The company is now proposing a London-Crewe-Warrington-Manchester service. For those of us prepared to spend an extra hour travelling between London and Manchester, this would be a cheap and cheerful alternative.
London Northwestern said: “Following the cancellation of the northern section of HS2, these proposals will provide much-needed connectivity between Manchester, the West Midlands and London, adding thousands of extra seats each day.”
It promises “fares up to 50 percent cheaper than the main intercity train company”.
The train would go to Manchester Victoria, not Piccadilly – which is a good thing. The station serves the northern part of the city centre and offers far better connections to a whole host of locations outside Manchester without having to change stations. It also has direct access to the excellent Manchester Metrolink (tram), without having to dive down several escalators into the bowels of Piccadilly Station.
London Northwestern is not alone in wanting to compete on the UK’s busiest intercity route.
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group hopes to return to the network it forged with “open access” services to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow. And FirstGroup hopes to extend its high-speed/low-cost/no-frills Lumo brand from its East Coast mainline westwards. Ironically, the capacity squeeze caused by the cancellation of HS2 means that passengers will almost certainly not enjoy the benefits of free and fair competition.
Now that HS2 has been scrapped, the government welcomes these moves to increase capacity and choice. I certainly do. But I’m not sure I’ll discuss them at length with Mr Harper.