Could High Speed Two Trains Serve Stoke-on-Trent?
The city of Stoke-on-Trent lobbied hard for High Speed Two to call, but it is going through closer to the West Coast Main Line, which is a few miles to the West.
Current Services
Stoke-on-Trent station is on the Stafford to Manchester branch of the West Coast Main Line.
It is served by two trains per hour (tph) between Euston and Manchester Piccadilly via Milton Keynes Central (1tph), Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield (1tph) and Stockport. The fastest journey time is one hour and 24 minutes.
Possible Routes Using High Speed Two
It should be noted that to serve Stafford on the West Coast Main Line, High Speed Two trains will use the West Coast Main Line, rather than High Speed Two between Lichfield and Crewe.
This map clipped from the High Speed Two web site, shows the two routes between Lichfield and Crewe.
Note.
- The straighter route is the new High Speed Two route.
- The bendy route is the West Coast Main Line.
- The two routes split to the North of the city of Lichfield in the South-East corner of the map.
- Stafford can be seen between the two routes.
- Stoke-on-Trent can be seen to the North-East of the routes.
- The new route through Crewe station is shown in orange.
To give an idea of scale, the West Coast Main Line is about forty miles long between the two junctions at Lichfield and Crewe.
Possible Ways High Speed Two Could Serve Stoke-on-Trent Station
There are several ways that High Speed Two trains can serve Stoke-on-Trent station.
London Euston And Stoke-on-Trent Direct
The simplest way is to run a direct service between London Euston and Stoke-on-Trent
- It would use High Speed Two from Euston to Lichfield, where it would take the Trent Valley Line.
- It would proceed to Stoke-on-Trent via Rugeley Trent Valley and Stone.
I estimate that the service would take one hour and two minutes.
The service could either turnback at Stoke-on-Trent or go on to Crewe, Manchester or some other convenient terminus.
Manchester services might even call at Macclesfield and Stockport, as the current services do now!
Times between London and Manchester by various routes could be.
- Current via Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield and Stockport – Two hours and seven minutes.
- Planned using High Speed Two – One hour and seven minutes.
- High Speed Two and current route to Manchester – One hour and forty-one minutes
Manchester will get three tph from London and one from Birmingham, so perhaps one of the four services should go via Stoke-in-Trent.
The Anonymous Widower 