High Speed 2: necessity or folly?

The opposing groups are limbering up for the battle.  The proposal is to build a high speed railway between London and Birmingham where the line will bifurcate, one limb going to Manchester, the other to Leeds.

Proponents of the scheme point to the slashed journey times between major cities, the increasing demand for rail travel and the problem of some existing routes being close to saturation.

See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/8668412/HS2-the-fast-track-fix-for-bridging-the-North-South-divide.html

Opponents point to the environmental damage the new line will cause, dispute the need for speed over capacity and argue that the funding would be better spent on improving existing routes and re-opening closed lines. See also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/8672802/Full-scale-of-opposition-to-34-billion-High-Speed-2-rail-link-revealed.html

Building new railways is a very slow process from initial planning to completion and it is vital that plans to deal with the capacity problems on the routes from London to Birmingham and Manchester are put in motion now.  The question though is: is the proposed solution the correct one?

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is a very busy route serving, inter alia, London, Coventry, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Stockport, Manchester, Chester, Liverpool, Preston, Blackpool and Glasgow. The problem is that some stations along the line have a poor service in order to maximise capacity for trains between major cities.  Places such as Milton Keynes, Northampton, Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Litchfield and Stafford suffer.

There is an alternative route to Birmingham from London Marylebone via High Wycombe, Bicester and Leamington Spa.  This route has had significant upgrades in recent years and operates a half-hourly service between London and Birmingham.  It is slower, but cheaper, by this route.  It is difficult to see how capacity can be raised much more without a detrimental effect on the suburban traffic from London to High Wycombe and Aylesbury.

There are those who claim the answer is not to build a new high speed line but to enhance the capacity of the WCML.  It is difficult to see how this could be achieved.  It would be more expensive than building a new line and there would be untold disruption on the route for the third time in sixty years.

Is there anything else that can be done?  One suggestion is to re-open the Bedford-Northampton line to enable Thameslink trains to reach the latter town and thence to Birmingham or along the Trent valley to Stafford.

One of the major problems in the Manchester-London traffic.  At one time it was possible to reach four London termini from Manchester.  The only remaining route is that to Euston via Stafford.  Until the 1970s it was possible to travel via Derby to St Pancras, via Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester to Maryleone and via Sheffield and Grantham to King's Cross.  I believe consideration should be given to re-opening at least one alternative route between Manchester and London.

See:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/29/boris-johnson-high-speed-rail