In the news

10 years ago I worked on the HS2 business case, it was barely
beneficial at the old cost estimate and a lot of that was due to some
magic spreadsheet from (I think) PwC that said there would be huge
benefits to the regional economies. I did transport modelling and
almost all the benefit there was for people commuting into London from
Birmingham. Politicians love shiny high speed projects though, nobody
wants to spend the money on 4-tracking or electrifying existing routes

Aha, but they do! Only issue with East Coast Mainline is that you can't 4 track it because of a2 track pinch point at Welwyn Viaduct and the tunnels either side. That and a suburban station, Welwyn North, right in the middle of that section where trains stop and effectively block the only route in front of high speed intercity service between London and Edinburgh (and York, Leeds etc). Options considered included demolishing that station, building new bridges, flying trains and massive tunnels. The digital solution is a bit of a no-brainer really.

Plus because all new trains have the capability and under ECML we're fitting 80% of the national freight fleet, once we're done, the business case for the next scheme will be far stronger.

That's the plan anyway. Now we only have to worry about training umpteen thousand drivers, conductors, signallers, maintenance staff, track workers, station staff... oh and making it work on steam trains.

Easy.