Are we asking the wrong questions about HS2?

I am not sure there was much else Rishi could have done to salvage HS2. But I come bearing good news. There is no reason why HS2 cannot still be a great railway, even if it travels along the wrong route at the wrong speed and was constructed in the wrong direction to solve a problem which no longer exists. All you need to do is redefine what the railway is for. Perhaps it can be the right answer to a different question.

A useful precedent for reinvention here might be what was originally called the Millennium Dome. Though hopeless at fulfilling its original purpose, once reinvented as the O2 it has proved an asset to London. Or consider Cunard: when it found its liners outpaced by aircraft, it sold its ships as a destination rather than transportation and in the process largely invented the cruise-ship industry. The ships remained good answers – but to a different question.

In the words of Piet Hein: ‘Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer.’ There are two sources of hope: first, contrary to most assumptions, the high-speed trains themselves will not terminate at Birmingham – only the line. The trains themselves will continue to other destinations at lower speed and hence may be free to stop at intermediate stations where there is space for northerners to park their flashy cars.

Secondly, the junction at Old Oak Common, though often an object of ridicule, is actually a good idea. Indeed it formed part of Arup’s sensible plan for the line, before some idiot ruined everything by deciding the trains had to travel at 250 mph.