Greengauge 21 advoate HS2 to Sheffield and Derby

This may sound like the consolation prize to the Lib Dems in Sheffield who lost control of the city council last week, but your party leader might yet retain his seat at the next election.

The independently and government commissioned think tank Greengauge 21 has advocated in Rail magazine that where HS2 has a birmingham rail link, there should also be a link to the East onto the line o Derby to allow through running to there and Sheffield. It advocates this rail link as a way to cut journey times to London by 30 minutes and relieve capacity on The Midland Mian line for freight to the North Sea ports in East Anglia and Thanmeslink upgrade services. Further at present the St Pancras UK rail service platforms are soon to reach capacity.

Also advocated for similar reasons is the diversion of slow (London Midland) Euston- Birmingham (or perhaps the traisn that only run as far out as Milton Keynes, Tring and Watford) onto a link to serve Old Oak Common Interchange station and then Crossrail (subject to funding). That way capacity would be created at Euston station for HS2 rebuild and expansion of the station after Crossrail has opened in 2018. This is in Network Rails latest strategy document for the South East according to the article in Rail magazine. It would mean that the trains that werre going to run from Abbey Wood and terminate at Paddington on Crossrail would have a further destination, thus increasing Crossrails business case).

In the meantime there is the London Underground Metropolitan line A stock. If it is signalling compatible and adapting it for three rail running is not cost prohibitive or a health and safety risk, then it could run on Watford Junction - Kilburn High Road / South Hampstead slow services while Euston is being rebuilt. The risk with that is that it could interfere with the AC power lines as their capacity has been upgraded since that was designed.

If this were overcome then the new London Overground rail stock could run from Willesden Junction to Stratford and be reallocated temporarilly onto the Balham loop proposed service to upgrade the East London Line stage II line to Clapham Junction. Or if not then the A stock could always be adapted to run on the Balham Loop itself.