I have been an avid viewer of a sedate travelogue on BBC2, now in its third series, called ‘Great British Railway Journeys’. In it, arguably the best PM we never had, Michael Portillo, proves an affable and informative presenter as he follows Britain’s railways from place to place and examines the impact that the coming of the railway had. He uses the railway guide published annually in the Victorian era by George Bradshaw as a reference source and meets local historians wherever he pitches up.
The programme is on too early to watch live so I have watched each series using iPlayer. This week I have followed Michael through East Anglia where he has expounded the massive explosion of the Norfolk turkey industry when the railway brought it a route to wider markets, the way that the arrival of the railway created the largest freight gateway to our islands on the estuary of the Orwell and Stour rivers at Felixstowe and Harwich and how Southend boomed by attracting daytrippers by rail after it built a pier so long it carried it own railway, still operating today, to take folk out to its end.
With the railway, came prosperity. Towns and villages not on the rail network shrank. Which brings us to the Government’s approval of HS2 and the battle lines drawn around it. Each week seemingly sees new missives in our local newspaper fired off from H T Harvey representing the pro lobby and Richard Lloyd for the campaign against the project. Is it the expensive project we cannot afford or the project investment we cannot afford not to make?
Personally, I come unequivocally into the latter camp. This project is vital, essential to the economic health of both the West Midlands region and the UK. We cannot afford to fall behind the rest of world in our ability to move people and goods about. Before the present Government scrapped the Regions, the West Midlands was eighth of the nine English regions in the economic league table, despite our location at the central hob of the national infrastructure. The connections that HS2 would bring could make a significant transformation to that position, generating employment and bringing inward investment.
It is argued that that there is no demand for HS2. I am old enough to recall when there was no demand for the M1 and the M5. I remember being driven from Worcester to Ross on the M5 and M50 in the mid sixties, before the M5 extended north of Longbridge or south of Tewkesbury. We pretty much had the two lanes to ourselves all the way. Look at them now. As ‘Great Railway Journeys’ shows, infrastructure creates its own demand.
Now, we need to get people and goods back onto the railways. Rail is comfortably the most fuel efficient means of travel and in the era of climate change and global warming, we need to improve fuel efficiency. The Birmingham to Euston line is relatively saturated. It could take longer trains but few more trains and will not take freight slowing up the works. The Snow Hill to Marylebone has seen massive growth in passenger numbers since in reopened in 1993. It has always struggled to compete with the Euston line for speed but has won favour through reliability, which would be affected significantly by a growth in freight. A new, faster line would generate capacity for freight on these older tracks.
Given that most of the Euston line opened in 1838 when it was served by the Curzon Street terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway Company, now planned for re-use by HS2, and Snow Hill was connected to London by the Great Western Railway in 1852, it is perhaps no shock that these are routes that have exhausted their limitations. Like a tired early central heating system in a home, you can only keep it going for so many decades before you need a more modern solution.
However, to come back to where we started, and take a local perspective, the nearest station to my home is Dorridge. Around 1850, the Great Western Railway wanted to build the line across the Umberslade estate, but there was local resistance. George Fredrick Muntz of Umberslade Hall, MP for Birmingham, finally agreed to the railway, provided a station was provided on the estate for his convenience. The station was built, in the middle of nowhere, down the hill from Knowle, and called Knowle Station.
The railway offered the opportunity for homes to be built by those eager to commute into Birmingham’s commercial district and Dorridge came into being, setting the foundations for what is a relatively prosperous part of our borough today.
If the Solihull of the second quarter of this century has an economic heartbeat that radiates from Bickenhill with a rejuvenated NEC, an expanded international airport, a high speed rail connection to the north and to the south and vibrant surrounding business parks then our town will be competitive. And on that competitiveness the long term wellbeing of our community and its people will depend.
As in 1850, local resistance is understandable, but must be overcome for the greater good.