London Banter - High speed line routeing

On Apr 17, 1:08*am, "Peter Masson" wrote:
wrote

What I don't see is a cost effective way to get the line into
central London. * * *The Chiltern route is probably doable (with some
work) as far as Ruislip, but it's not obvious what to do from there.
I'm a little scared that the proposal for a southern terminus in the
Old Oak Common area might be adopted.

There's a perfect and practically disused formation from Ruislip to Old Oak
Common. Then railway land to join the WCML east of Willesden Junction.
Whether the existing fast lines can be used into Euston, or a new double
track tunnel is needed, is not immediately clear, but I am sure the London
terminus needs to be at Euston - it can be made to have enough capacity for
the HSL and WCML commuter trains. I agree that Heathrow needs to be served,
but a new HSL from Central London to Heathrow sounds expensive, and the
detour via and additional stop at Heathrow negates most of the advantages of
a HSL from London to Birmingham. I suspect that it would be more
cost-effective to serve Heathrow by a spur from Denham.

Of course, if someone had foreseen the need to provide a good rail link from
Heathrow to Birmingham back in the 1940s or 1950s it wouldn't have been too
difficult to link up the Uxbridge High Street, Uxbridge Vine Street, and
Staines West branches.

This is common sense. I agree with every word you write.